NAMI Mercer Honors Two Local Mental Health Leaders

LOCAL MENTAL HEALTH LEADERS TO BE HONORED BY NAMI MERCER

Thanks to the outstanding leadership of Thomas H. Pyle and David Lee White, innumerable people in our local communities have a better understanding of the challenges faced by those with mental illness and a deeper commitment to mental health and wellbeing. They will be honored on Saturday evening, November 18, 2023 at NAMI Mercer’s annual gala, Night Out with NAMI.

Tom Pyle will become NAMI Mercer’s 12th Pillar awardee for his extraordinary, long-term contribution to the organization’s mission through volunteerism, leadership, advocacy, and charitable giving. Tom has made an exceptional contribution to the NAMI Mercer Board since 2011, serving as its president from 2021-2023. His extensive experience as a senior executive in banking, business, and non-profit/community health services has been a great asset.

Since his son Adam’s diagnosis with schizophrenia in 2007, Tom has centered his world around helping his son and advocating for others affected by mental illness, including returning to school to earn an MS in Psychiatric Rehabilitation from Rutgers.

Tom’s chief area of contribution has been advocacy. He was a long-standing leader of the NAMI Mercer Advocacy Committee and very involved in its Trenton Psychiatric Hospital (TPH) Monitoring Program. He now serves on the TPH Board of Trustees as well as the NJ Behavioral Health Planning Council and the NJ Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association.

In 2017, with support from a Princeton Community TV award, Tom produced and directed Passage to Hope, a NAMI Mercer documentary, which won top honors as Best Documentary at the Nassau Film Festival in Princeton.

Tom also has been instrumental in establishing NAMI Mercer’s Hearing Voices Network (HVN), a peer-focused forum for people who hear voices and their loved ones. Another of Tom’s innovations is a NAMI Mercer service he has named “Helpline Plus.” He personally takes referrals from the Helpline, the DMHS, and the community to provide in-depth, long-term assistance with very challenging situations. Tom currently is enhancing Helpline Plus resources by recruiting volunteer medical and legal professionals. An expert on supportive housing in NJ, Tom participated on the Board of Community Enterprises Corporation (CEC), which manages the Collaborative Support Services of New Jersey’s shared housing.

Most recently, Tom is a key player in NAMI Mercer’s “Collaborations for Caring Communities.” With grant funding from Janssen, the goal of this initiative is to reach vulnerable and underserved communities in urban Trenton to learn about their mental health challenges, to break down cultural barriers to seeking care, and to raise awareness of mental health resources.

Just two weeks after losing his son Adam to suicide, Tom courageously addressed the 400 in attendance at NAMIWalks Mercer County 2022. He demonstrated his dedication to NAMI in the most profound way by pledging to continue his volunteer work and inspiring others to remain hopeful.

David Lee White will become NAMI Mercer’s fifth Visionary awardee for using his position of leadership to increase awareness, promote understanding, and improve the lives of people affected by mental illness.

David is an award-winning playwright/performer/educator who earned his MFA at the University of Pittsburgh. His plays have been reviewed by The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Times of Trenton, and other well-known media outlets.

David has played an important role in several signature NAMI Mercer events by interviewing actor Maurice Benard at “Night IN with NAMI 2020,” ABC meteorologist Ginger Zee at “Harvest of Hope 2022,” and actor/activist Ashley Judd in 2023.

A lifelong devotee of using the arts to build and celebrate community, David has collaborated with local theaters and educational institutions to stage comedies, musicals, and verbatim theater. Throughout his career, David has been a vocal advocate for mental health. As one of the inaugural group of playwrights to receive commissions from the New Jersey Performing Arts Centers’ Stage Exchange Program, he wrote Fixed, a play about navigating the mental healthcare system. His mental health awareness work continued with Panther Hollow, a solo show about his battle with clinical depression in his youth.

For 14 years, David was the associate artistic director at Passage Theatre in Trenton, NJ, which specializes in community-based works. While there, he wrote the farces Blood: A Comedy and Slippery as Sin as well as oral histories Trenton Lights and Profiles, co-created with Artistic Director June Ballinger. He helped create the shows The OK Trenton Project and Janet Wide-Awake with co-writer Rich Bradford and continues to work with Passage Theatre

David’s work with Kate Brennan on The Infinity Trilogy has been seen at theatres, colleges, and high schools all over the country and was the recipient of a MAP Fund award. ALiEN8, the first musical in the trilogy, was recently performed at the Bucks County Playhouse in August 2023 and is now available through YouthPLAYS. The second musical, Clean Slate, premiered at Rider University and Passage Theatre.

David does comedic work at Vivid Stage, a non-profit theater in Summit, NJ, and is a member of its comedy troupe “The Flip Side.” Vivid Stage also produced an audio production of his play Ways to Happy.

David currently teaches improvisational comedy, dramatic analysis, and theater history at Drexel University, where he co-created the web series Essential with director Bill Fennelly. He is also the new artistic director of OnStage Seniors in Princeton.

Anyone who might be interested in attending this event can purchase tickets https://namimercer.org/get-involved/attend-night-out-with-nami/