{"id":29628,"date":"2020-12-24T12:25:53","date_gmt":"2020-12-24T17:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=29628"},"modified":"2020-12-25T06:39:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-25T11:39:20","slug":"arthur-mans-christmas-display-shines-a-light-on-mental-health-awareness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/arthur-mans-christmas-display-shines-a-light-on-mental-health-awareness\/","title":{"rendered":"Arthur man’s Christmas display shines a light on mental health awareness"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Arthur man is raising awareness about mental health, and trying to raise funds for the child and adolescent inpatient mental health (CAIP) unit<\/a>, at the Grand River Hospital in Kitchener.<\/p>\n

When Scott Tonelli\u2019s son, Shane, was 13-years-old, he had a manic episode and was taken to the CAIP unit at Grand River Hospital.<\/p>\n

Tonelli said his son was diagnosed six or seven different times and there was no aftercare for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019ve told people, you know, picture being a father with your kid kind of lifeless in your arms, and you\u2019re going, \u2018what do you mean there is no bed? And there\u2019s no help?\u2019\u201d Tonelli said.<\/p>\n

From that moment on, Tonelli decided to start saving all his change to buy a bed for his son, thus creating Change 4 Change<\/a>, a public Facebook group dedicated to the cause.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until a few years ago, where Tonelli said he had a knock on his door, and two little girls with their father handed him a pre-paid visa card, because they admired his \u201cmagical\u201d Christmas lights display.<\/p>\n

Tonelli said that\u2019s when he had his eureka moment, and decided that he wasn\u2019t going to buy a bed, he was going to invest his change into light shows, to try to drum up change from others.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent the last two years now building a light show to help either another family that went through what I went through, or to fund a bed, whatever that is,\u201d Tonelli said. \u201cI want to shed light on it that the fact that mental illness isn\u2019t something to be ashamed of or to hide from, it should be talked about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tonelli said the whole display is made up of computerized smart nodes, it runs 42 minutes in length, and it took him roughly 2000 hours to set up.<\/p>\n

His goal is to raise $4500 and he stated that there isn\u2019t enough funding for children that suffer from mental health illnesses, and he wants to change the stigma.<\/p>\n

\u201cMental health isn\u2019t a bad thing, as much as it\u2019s difficult and terrible to deal with sometimes, like I said, and I hate to downplay it like a cough or a cold, but those are socially acceptable illnesses,\u201d Tonelli expressed. \u201cWhy is mental health not accepted as much as it should be? Because we can\u2019t see it, that\u2019s why.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are a number of ways people can donate, the easiest is going out to enjoy the light show at, 105 Schmidt Drive in Arthur, and donating on the premises.<\/p>\n

Another way is checking out Tonelli\u2019s Facebook page, Change 4 Change<\/a> and donating through a QR code. Or, people can send an e-transfer to tonelli14@hotmail.com<\/a> and chfourch@outlook.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All donations go directly to the CAIP unit<\/a> at the Grand River Hospital.<\/p>\n

The show runs every night from 6 to 11 p.m. until the new year.<\/p>\n

\"QR

QR Code to donate directly to the CAIP unit. Photo from: Scott Tonelli<\/p><\/div>\n

Scott Tonelli, Arthur resident:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\nhttps:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Edited-Clip-Scott.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Arthur man is raising awareness about mental health, and trying to raise funds for the child and adolescent inpatient mental health (CAIP) unit, at the Grand River Hospital in Kitchener. When Scott Tonelli\u2019s son, Shane, was 13-years-old, he had a manic episode and was taken to the CAIP unit at Grand River Hospital. Tonelli…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":29645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,221,223],"tags":[4533,2515,2954,4532,4527,4534,4530,1107,4531],"radio":[1376],"origine":[267,1369,269],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29628"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29628"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=29628"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=29628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}