The Trans-Montana Charity Snowmobile Ride Begins This Weekend!

Each winter, snowmobilers from across the United States make their way to Montana for the Trans-Montana Charity Ride. NAMI Montana is the beneficiary charity for this ride and we are so grateful. The ride specifically goes towards our efforts with youth and veterans.

The Trans-Montana Ride has been essential to strengthening and expanding the Youth Aware of Mental Health program in Montana which is now being delivered in 30 schools and is primed for expansion. This is one of the world's leading youth mental health and suicide prevention programs. It has been such an essential program for our youth. We do not know where the YAMH program would be in Montana without critical support of the Trans-Montana snowmobilers.

The Trans-Montana charity ride has also been essential to ensuring that NAMI Montana can be a consistent and powerful voice for veterans and their families. In 2020, NAMI Montana took a leadership role in the development and passage of the?Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act. This bipartisan legislation has been hailed as the most powerful veterans' suicide prevention legislation of the last decade. In the spring of 2022, NAMI Montana is hoping for the passage of the?Guaranteeing Healthcare Access to Personnel Who Served Act.?We have spent years advocating for key sections of this bill, such as creating a stable funding platform for peer support services in the VA and requiring the VA to find a way to serve veterans with treatment-resistant depression (a group at severe risk of suicide.) NAMI Montana would not have been able to consistently carry our efforts for veterans on year after year without the support of the Trans-Montana Charity Ride.

This year's ride will begin on Lolo Pass on February 5th and end in Cooke City on February 12th. You can find out more about this year's Trans-Montana ride at the website.?https://www.trans-montana.org/index.html

Please consider supporting this effort by buying tickets for the Trans-Montanan Charity Ride Sweepstakes. You can buy a ticket at?https://montanasnowmobileassociation.betterworld.org/giveaways/trans-montana-sweepstakes#rules

Thank you!

Matt Kuntz

Executive Director

NAMI Montana