A total of $30,000 has been raised from individual donors to pay for a mental health counselor in the TeenTalk program, now expected to start at the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year at Middlesex Middle School, the Community Fund of Darien has announced.
— based on an announcement from The Community Fund of Darien
Enough donations came in to meet The Community Fund of Darien’s $30,000 goal to help finance a TeenTalk counselor at Middlesex Middle School.
“Together, we reached our goal,” TCF said in an email sent early Friday morning. “With the help of our generous neighbors like you, a TeenTalk Mental Health Counselor will be placed in the Middlesex Middle School for the 2024-2025 school year. Thank you.
“We couldn’t have done this without your support.”
TeenTalk is a program of Kids In Crisis, which will place a master’s level mental health counselor at Middlesex, offering Darien middle school students 24/7 confidential one-on-one and group counseling.
The Community Fund of Darien had launched a fundraising campaign to finance $30,000 of the cost of a TeenTalk counselor at the school. TCF and the Darien Health Department had already pledged to contribute a total of $70,000 towards the full $100,000 cost.
Image from TCF email
On Tuesday, June 4, The Community Fund announced that it was still short $8,000 in the fundraising campaign. This morning — 36 hours later, TCF announced the goal has been reached.
TCF sought $30,000 in individual donations to cover the rest of the cost. The goal originally was to raise the funds by May 31 to launch the program this fall for the 2024-2025 school year, but even as of Tuesday, June 4, only $22,000 had been given. The new target appears to have been to get the money by sometime in June.
The Community Fund of Darien and our community partners are committed to funding a MMS TeenTalk counselor for three years. The recent Thriving Youth Darien Youth Survey indicated the need for mental health support for our youth in Grades 6 to 12.
“The TeenTalk program at Darien High School has been successful since its September 2023 launch.The DHS TeenTalk counselor has met with 55 students and has conducted 860 counseling sessions.”