Meet Our Donors We thank all our planned-gift donors for their generous support. James A. Hawkins About mid-way through my forty-year career with Eastman Kodak Company, I fell into a severe depression that lasted for five miserable years. Much of that time I was barely able to function, but managed to continue working. My bosses at Kodak compassionately kept me on in my position although they knew my productivity was diminished. They also paid for professional psychiatric care for me, and blessedly I finally rose out of that deep, dark, cold, and hopeless pit which defines depression. My life since, ironically, has been enriched by the experience, and I vowed at once that I would do everything I could to help others to escape from, or avoid, the indescribable pain that I had suffered. In 1986, I met Jack and Joanne Hinckley who had recently, and courageously, founded the American Mental Health Fund — designed to educate people about the warning signs of mental illness, to eliminate its stigma, and to encourage sufferers to seek professional help. Hearing my own story, they asked me to join their Board. In 1990, Jack Hinckley retired as Chairman and the Board elected me to take his place — first as Chairman and a year later as President. In 1991, it became clear to us on the Board that our work could be enhanced if we were to merge with the much larger and older Mental Health America. I approached the MHA Board and they quickly approved our proposal, and the merger was completed in 1991. Three of us from American Mental Health Fund served on the MHA staff for a year to facilitate the transition, and I have continued to work as a volunteer for MHA each year since. In 1999, I was elected to their Board, and am about to complete my second three-year term. In 1989, I was offered and accepted (along with thousands of other Kodak employees) an early retirement package that included a one-year salary bonus. Marian and I decided to establish an Irrevocable Trust with approximately half the bonus and to name the MHA as one of four beneficiaries after our demise. In return we have received substantial tax benefits together with some annual income, and the satisfaction that we are playing a part towards the long-term financial health of MHA and the other beneficiaries. In recent years, all of us on the MHA Board have been encouraged to establish some form of secure contribution at the end of life to MHA, and I am proud to know that many of us have done so.
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