A candlelight vigil will be held Thursday night at the Leflore County courthouse to honor the mentally ill and their families.
Organizers are hoping for a large turnout for this culmination of the area's National Mental Illness Awareness Week.
"We want to raise understanding to break the stigma attached to mental illness," said Elizabeth "Pann" Powers, chairman of the Life Help Mental Health Center advisory council. Life Help and Greenwood's National Alliance for Mental Illness are sponsoring the event.
Linda Brown will share about the organizations' program In Your Voice which provides peer-to-peer counseling for the mentally ill. Brown personally experiences bipolar disorder. The family-to-family program will be explained by Edwina McCain, whose husband and son are bipolar.
Musical guests will include the Rev. Randy Weeks from First Presbyterian Church.
The Rev. Ella Breckenridge from Episcopal Church of the Nativity will lead the group in prayer.
"Mental illness can strike regardless of age, race or socioeconomic background," said Powers. "But there is help, and there is hope."
