Emmy Handen
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A Colorado Springs native, Emmy co-owns and runs Bravo Screen Printing & Embroidery with her ex-husband Mario. Bravo has been screen printing and embroidering textiles for local companies, colleges, sports teams and more since the early 2000s. “It’s like our middle child,” Emmy says with a laugh. “Our son is 17, the business is 16, and our daughter’s 15.”
While some of that screen printing work has been for NAMI — most recently, with a bunch of You Are Not Alone campaign T-shirts — Emmy has been familiar with the organization from a young age. “My parents work with the homeless population in Colorado Springs, and of course there’s a lot of mental illness with that population,” she says. “But beyond that, it’s not just something that affects homeless people.” |
As her kids have gotten into high school, Emmy has recognized how much teens in particular need assistance. Given issues such as bullying, school violence and youth suicide, Emmy says, it’s important that younger populations understand mental health and mental illness.
“NAMI is able to work to take that stigma away,” she says, “and offer support to individuals who are either struggling themselves, or are struggling with family members, which I think is really important. It can be as hard sometimes to have a family member suffering as to be the one suffering, yourself.”
And finding ways to help those who are suffering is just part of life for Emmy. “We’ve been really lucky,” she says. “Certainly hard work plays into it, but we’ve also been lucky. The community has supported us and we really believe in giving back where we can.”
This year, Emmy stepped up with a generous matching grant for NAMI — meaning that if you give, she might just be the one who doubles your gift. “We like that NAMI is a local support,” she says. “I know they’re part of a national organization, but they’re really active locally.”
Click here to donate to NAMI.
(December 2018)
“NAMI is able to work to take that stigma away,” she says, “and offer support to individuals who are either struggling themselves, or are struggling with family members, which I think is really important. It can be as hard sometimes to have a family member suffering as to be the one suffering, yourself.”
And finding ways to help those who are suffering is just part of life for Emmy. “We’ve been really lucky,” she says. “Certainly hard work plays into it, but we’ve also been lucky. The community has supported us and we really believe in giving back where we can.”
This year, Emmy stepped up with a generous matching grant for NAMI — meaning that if you give, she might just be the one who doubles your gift. “We like that NAMI is a local support,” she says. “I know they’re part of a national organization, but they’re really active locally.”
Click here to donate to NAMI.
(December 2018)