{"id":802524,"date":"2019-12-21T17:05:27","date_gmt":"2019-12-22T00:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=376355"},"modified":"2019-12-21T17:05:27","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T00:05:27","slug":"betsy-casey-building-hope-founder-and-program-manager-leaving-for-position-at-katz-amsterdam-foundation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/betsy-casey-building-hope-founder-and-program-manager-leaving-for-position-at-katz-amsterdam-foundation\/","title":{"rendered":"Betsy Casey, Building Hope founder and program manager, leaving for position at Katz Amsterdam Foundation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Betsy Casey will be leaving Summit County’s premiere mental non-profit Building Hope in January.<\/strong>
File photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Betsy Casey, one of Summit County\u2019s beloved locals and the heart and soul of the county\u2019s premiere mental health non-profit Building Hope, is moving on to bigger, brighter pastures. Casey will be leaving her role as the program manager of Building Hope next month and taking on a position at the Katz Amsterdam Foundation, a philanthropic foundation focused on mental health founded by Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz and his wife, Elana Amsterdam.<\/p>\n

Casey, a lifelong Summit local who helped found Building Hope in the wake of personal tragedy back in 2016, announced her departure in an email to community partners Tuesday, Dec. 17.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a very difficult decision for me to make,\u201d Casey wrote. \u201cI am obviously extremely emotionally and professionally invested in Building Hope, I love my colleagues and have absolutely loved the work I have gotten to do, but I have the opportunity to have an impact at a national level through the incredible work of (Katz Amsterdam Foundation).\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview on Friday, Casey said that she will be taking on the position of Network Director at the foundation. The role will involve managing the foundation\u2019s mental and behavioral health network in mountain communities with Vail Resorts across North America, connecting and sharing learning on mental health solutions across communities, gathering data for a shared measurement framework, providing technical assistance and making meaningful data-driven decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really an opportunity to connect on a national level, so we are sharing resources and creating strategies that are sustainable, connecting each other to resources and tactics,\u201d Casey said.<\/p>\n

\n
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Dr. Jules Rosen, right, former chief medical officer of behavioral health group Mind Springs Health and the West Springs psychiatric hospital in Grand Junction, discusses depression during a panel discussion in Breckenridge. Betsy Casey, left, looks on.<\/strong>
Kevin Fixler \/ kfixler@summitdaily.com<\/a> |<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Casey said that her experience with Building Hope amply informs her new role, as it involved connecting community partners all across Summit \u2014 government, non-profits, schools, businesses, the healthcare community, and many others \u2014 who she credited as the biggest reason Building Hope grew out from an idea to a thriving program that is saving lives.<\/p>\n

Casey said that her move from Building Hope was extremely emotional and bittersweet, given how she had given her life for the past years to found and grow the non-profit which was born out of the most painful experience of her life. <\/p>\n

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Patti Casey, center, with her two daughters, Betsy Casey, left, and Lindsay Vitalis.<\/strong>
Courtesy of the Casey Family<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

In January, 2016, Betsy\u2019s mother, Patti Casey, ended her own life<\/a>. The tragedy was a wrenching blow that broke the community\u2019s heart in Summit, where Patti\u2019s devotion to her family and community had earned her the moniker of \u201cSt. Patti.\u201d Patti\u2019s struggles with depression and alcoholism were a deeply hidden family secret, and members of the community was dumbfounded and in shock that such a bright, loved person could commit suicide.But it did not take long for the Casey family to turn their grief to positive action. Having learned of statistics showing how Summit County had a suicide rate three times the national average, Casey said that it was at the funeral service where she and her family resolved to try to do something, anything, to push back the tides of the crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy part of this journey began at my mom\u2019s service, where I talked to my family and decided that we should start a fund in my mom\u2019s name,\u201d Casey said. \u201cWe wanted to do something, and we we wanted it to involve suicide prevention, substance abuse treatment and mental health awareness.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so Building Hope was born that same year, 2016. It started out as a community pilot program<\/a> funded by the Summit Foundation and facilitated through the non-profit Family & Intercultural Resource Center. After years of building on successes, failures and tragedies since, Building Hope is now its own non-profit with its own staff and rigorous program schedule, as well as endless attempts to reach out to the community and find those of us who are hurting and give them comfort and hope.<\/p>\n

Leaving what she helped build is as bittersweet as it gets, but Casey acknowledged that putting her heart, soul, mind and body into Building Hope for years had taken a toll on her own mental and physical health. Casey, who now resides in Denver, was commuting to Summit at least three days a week. Friends and neighbors welcomed her into their homes whenever she needed to stay here, sharing home and hearth and asking nothing in return.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t realize how much of a toll that had taken on me, constantly commuting in cold weather, bad weather,\u201d Casey said. \u201cLogistically and physically it was straining, driving, not having your own space, being away from home three days a week and living out of a bag and car. After three and a half years of doing that, I felt really tired and knew it wasn\u2019t sustainable, that I couldn\u2019t keep doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the work she did sustained her spirit and is giving promise that Summit County may finally have a system in place to help the most vulnerable and isolated among us. Casey said she leaves Building Hope knowing it is in the best possible place it could be, praising its \u201cwonderful\u201d Executive Director Jennifer McAtamney and the rest of the staff who will continue the mission Casey began during her darkest days.<\/p>\n

Just like the wake of the winter solstice, Casey sees only brighter days ahead for Building Hope, and she said it was because of how Building Hope goes about doing business \u2014 not reaching for metrics and numbers, but people\u2019s hearts and minds.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I\u2019ve been thinking about is the culture and values I\u2019ve tried to imbue Building Hope with, which is about care and concern and not just doing things as a business,\u201d Casey said. \u201cI always tell our team, \u2018Get s\u2014 done, but do it with heart.\u2019 Get stuff done but do it in a way that we\u2019re going the extra mile, where we\u2019re not just checking all the boxes and looking at program statistics. With successful partnerships, we did it in a way that really cared about people. And that\u2019s kind of magical.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Betsy Casey will be leaving Summit County’s premiere mental non-profit Building Hope in January.File photo Betsy Casey, one of Summit County\u2019s beloved locals and the heart and soul of the county\u2019s premiere mental health non-profit Building Hope, is moving on to bigger, brighter pastures. Casey will be leaving her role as the program manager of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-802524","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-30 00:04:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}