Bristol Township School District and Bristol Cares are honored to congratulate Nicholas Emeigh, Associate Executive Director of NAMI Bucks County, for being the first recipient of the ROAR Alumni Award. Emeigh will receive his award at the Seniors Honor Night on June 8, at 6:30 p.m., in the auditorium of Benjamin Franklin Middle School.
This award is a new, annual initiative in partnership with Bristol Cares and BTSD with a goal to increase belonging and celebrate community pride. The ROAR Alumni Award is granted to a Bristol Township graduate who has displayed distinguished accomplishments in one of the following categories: Community Impact, Volunteer Service, Humanitarian Efforts or Business/Professional Achievement.
Emeigh is being recognized for Community Impact for all the work he achieved with NAMI.
Emeigh graduated from Harry S. Truman High School in 2000 and then attended Emerson College in Boston. Battling with his mental health and surviving three suicide attempts, Emeigh was struggling.
“My main goal was to survive and stay alive,” he said.
Knowledge of mental health is not something that came naturally to Emeigh and he had no one to talk to about what he was going through.
“Mental health support should be as regular as an AA or NA meeting,” he said.
Emeigh was fortunate when he found NAMI seven years ago. He started as a volunteer and worked his way up to his current role as Associate Executive Director. At NAMI, he provides his lived-experiences and perspectives to let others know they’re not alone.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, NAMI was already expanding and grew to 30 in-person programs.
“I thought that was a monumental achievement, and it was, but now we have more than 100 support groups that came out of the sheer need and demand of them,” said Emeigh.
A majority of the support groups are online, which has made it a lot easier for participants to open up. Emeigh says they feel more comfortable sharing their stories from their home or wearing pajamas.
Ultimately, COVID allowed NAMI to reach so many people. When Emeigh first started with NAMI, they could serve a couple thousand people, but now have the capacity to help 47,000.
As the recipient of the first ROAR Alumni Award, Emeigh was speechless at first.
“I did not plan to be alive right now,” he said. “I’m not doing my work with NAMI to get awards or be recognized, so to say I’m shocked right now is an understatement.”
“Levittown has a bad rap, but good things and good people do come out of Levittown. It’s really an honor to be one of the good ones,” he added.
Emeigh serves on several boards and committees including the Bucks County Behavioral Health Advisory Board as President, Bucks County Suicide Prevention Taskforce, Community Support Program of Bucks County, Transition Age Youth and Young Adult Workgroup, Young Adult Advisory Board, and as a peer on various care coalitions, and direct service advisory boards and committees.
If you are interested in joining the Bristol Cares nomination committee, please email [email protected].