As community members raise funds for an annual 5K walk organized by the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one high schooler hopes he can get other people his age thinking about mental health.

Alex Golnik, 16, has raised more than $3,000 as he prepares for Saturday’s walk. It’s his second year fundraising and this time he’s getting others involved.

Golnik, who is a junior at St. Thomas Academy, is also captain of the NAMIWalks team St. Thomas Academy Cadets. The team has raised more than $3,300 and has more than 20 members.

He first participated in the walks as a child with his grandmother, who is also fundraising this year, and he’ll be taking part in this year’s walk with his uncle.

A couple of years ago, Golnik began taking regular walks with his uncle, who has schizophrenia and lives in a group home, as a way for him to spend more time in nature.

The two have spent the time talking about his uncle’s different interests like ancestry, food, 80s music and geography. As Golnik looks into colleges, they also had a chance to connect on that and talk about classes his uncle took when he was in school.

One in five U.S. adults experienced mental illness in 2021, according to NAMI. Among six to 17-year-olds, 17% experience a mental health disorder.

“So, you know, everybody has some sort of a connection to it in some way or another. Everybody’s affected by it,” Golnik said.

Golnik said he’s had friends and classmates, even from other grades, who have reached out to him about the walk and he said he thinks it’s great to raise awareness around a topic that often has stigma surrounding it.

“I’m trying to raise the awareness, trying to get it in their heads because, you know, a lot of kids my age aren’t really thinking about this stuff right now,” Golnik said.

The walk is just a small thing that everybody can do to bring awareness to an important issue, Golnik said. He said he’s received a lot of community support in his effort and has surpassed his fundraising goal from last year when he raised just more than $1,000.

NAMIWalks Minnesota takes place Saturday at Minnehaha Park in Minneapolis. Check-in and festivities begin at 11 a.m. before the walk at 1 p.m. The event ends at 3 p.m. More information on the walk is available at namiwalks.org.

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