Happy Birthday, Nuçi’s Space!

The blue brick building at Oconee and Baldwin streets that houses is a modest indication of what the center has achieved since it opened in September 2000. Today, the Space will celebrate its 11th anniversary of providing hassle free mental health treatment to nearly 1,000 musicians and artists in the Athens area.

Nuci’s will be hosting an open house to recognize those who have given it their time and energy. They are also hoping to attract members of the Athens community who may have never been to Nuçi’s to see what goes on inside.   

“It’s a way to get people down here as an open house,” said Will Kiser, Nuçi’s Space's counseling advocate. He believes the stigma attached to depression can make taking the first step tino the Space intimidating.

“It is always such a fun event and it really means a lot to the staff to see all our friends, volunteers, donors and community members here supporting us,” said Laura Ford, who moved to Athens to pursue a master’s degree in non-profit organization management. She is now the Youth Program Coordinator at Nuçi’s Space.

 “The anniversary party is sort of our way of returning the favor and saying ‘thank you’ to those people who support us throughout the year,” Ford said.

Nuçi’s Space is a living monument to Nuçi Phillips, a senior at the University of Georgia and a guitarist. In 1996, when was 22 years old, he killed himself after battling clinical depression for five years. 

The Phillips family, especially, his mother Linda, wanted to create an active memorial for him that focused on two things, said Bob Sleppy, executive director at Nuçi’s Space. One was music, Nuçi’s greatest passion, and the other was mental health counseling, which was his greatest need—getting help for his depression in a timely manner.

In getting musicians and artists the help they need, the center has subsidized over 2,000 low-cost appointments.  It has averaged $110,000 to $115,000 annually in direct financial assistance to their counseling program thanks to contributions from both local and nationwide donors and beneficiaries.

In addition to providing easily accessible treatment and assistance, the program wants individual musicians to invest in their own health. Nuçi’s Space asks any musician or artist receiving services to pay a $10 fee towards the cost of that treatment.

“If you give something away, people don’t value it, but by asking them to pay a small piece of that, if they have to choose between going to their counseling session or buying cigarettes,” said Sleppy. “if they don’t think it’s valuable enough to go and spend that ten bucks, then maybe they’re just not ready to do that.”

The other function of Nuçi’s Space is providing high quality rehearsal spaces at affordable prices whether bands they are just passing through or call Athens home. 

“There’s nothing else like it,” said Patrick Keenan of the band The Winter Sounds, “it’s so insanely convenient and it’s really just a good place.” Keenan began rehearsing at Nuçi’s Space five years ago and has made the center a regular stop whenever his Nashville based band tours.  “The whole environment is amazing for so many reasons,” he said.      

The rehearsal facilities help attract members of the Athens community who otherwise may not have felt comfortable asking for help. 

 “Rather than building this mental health care facility and then attracting people to come to it,” said Sleppy, “we basically put this thing down right in the middle of the community.” Most of the individuals who come to the Space for help heard about it through word of mouth in the community.

Most volunteers and employees at Nuçi’s Space have personal experience of depression and appreciate the work done there even more.

 “It means the world to me,” said Laura Ford. Her brother James committed suicide in Dec. 2005 at the age of 18.

 “We are able to help so many people lead more productive, happier lives. Nuçi’s Space is such a powerful force, and the longer I work here the more amazed I am by how many lives we actually touch,” she said. “It is an amazing organization, and I feel so lucky to be involved.”