All Aboard! HugTrainUSA!

HugTrainUSA 2011/2012 is the third time Arie Moyal, an established social media strategist from London, UK has traveled around the USA on Amtrak giving away hugs, creating awareness & conversation around mental health, and raising funds for Mental Health America.

HugTrainUSA is a 2-week train trip all around the USA, where Arie gives hugs and attends local networking & media events to help spur discussion and spread holiday cheer at this often tragically difficult time of year.

Arie started HugTrainUSA a few years ago – while preparing for his relocation from North America to the UK, he experienced the loss of a friend to suicide, after which he decided to dedicate his 2-week trip around the USA visiting friends and raising funds & awareness in the memory of his friend, for a mental health charity.

Joining HugTrain: Each year on his trip Arie gains contacts, experiences and friends to help him raise funds & awareness for mental health, and his network is growing! This past Summer, when I first met Arie on Twitter, I decided to see if Sparkle Agency could contribute any help to his cause and I joined the team to help him develop publicity, sponsors and local huggers at every stop along his 14-day rail trip.

After a few months of cross-pond-collaboration this past Summer/Fall, I helped Arie secure Nokia as a major sponsor (#EpicWIN for #SparkleCharity, @Sparkle_Charity & HugTrain), but we just didn’t have the time or hours to pre-promote each of the major stops along HugTrainUSA’s itinerary.

We were unable to romance Amtrak into even so much as a Tweet of encouragement, even though the majority of Arie’s days & nights are on the wifi rails, and many of the hugs he gives are to working Amtrak employees far from their own family & friends over the holidays.

Mental Health, Depression and Suicide
This year’s HugTrainUSA is dedicated to the memory of Trey Pennignton, a widely-friended and respected social media expert who tragically committed suicide after suffering years of depression, this past September.

This past week, we also lost a great Canadian to suicide. Joe Bodolai was an established and loved comedy writer who enticed many laughing snorts from this girl, he was a passionate Canuck. Joe wrote for and contributed thoughts from his funny brain throughout his career to JFK’s campaign, to SNL with Andy Warhol, to Comics! (Canadian) and the Gemini Awards, and he played a major role in helping to create Canada’s The Comedy Network, amongst many, many accomplishments achieved in his jam-packed life.

Sadly, both Trey and Joe used social media to share their final thoughts before taking their lives, a new ability for us as humans – the ability to broadcast our own final thoughts before making a final decision. While I haven’t been to Trey’s blog (his death surprised and still upsets me), I only found out about Joe’s passing on Google, where I saw links to his final blog post on December 23, 2011 entitled “If This Were Your Last Day Alive, What Would You Do?”

Tomorrow evening, on New Years Eve 2012, Arie is in San Fransisco and planning to patrol The Golden Gate Bridge, where more people die by suicide than any other site in the world. While I hope he is VERY lonely there tomorrow night, I am also deeply grateful for him to be there to potentially intervene if anyone is thinking about making an unchangeable choice.

Arie, and HugTrainUSA Needs Your Help
While HugTrainUSA may seem fully organized and supported  we still need your help!

Arie is still on HugTrainUSA for another week, and after San Fransisco he will be back on the train to Chicago, Illinois, where Nokia will be hosting an event for him on January 4th 5:30-8:30pm CST.

At every stop along the HugTrainUSA itinerary, Arie is hoping to:

1. Raise funds for Mental Health America (there is a direct-donate button also on the HugTrain blog)
2. Find a hotel room for overnight stays (now only in San Fransisco Jan 1, Chicago Jan 4, Washington DC Jan 6, and Orlando OR Miami on Jan 8 & 9) and some ground transfers, as Arie generously recieved a few hours ago from @Uber_SF
3. Talk to local media, bloggers and mental health advocates/organizations
4. HUG and talk to as many people as possible, on the train and at every local stop!

A good hug can change your life. Here’s a little research on what a HUG can actually do.

We’ve got a Press Release from @RushPRNews, please Tweet @HugTrainUSA or share words of encouragement on the HugTrainUSA Facebook page.

Can you help? Arie is an established social media strategist with a fairly active online community, where he is sharing & blogging about everyone who helps him and joins the HugTrain mission!

Arie has been blogging, Tweeting and sharing his journey so far, but we definitely need YOUR help to generate more local media/blogger coverage and possibly a few nights’ hotel rooms. Anyone who donates help to HugTrainUSA will get a HUG and possibly an online blog post, MANY grateful tweets from the team, as well as conversation activity spurned by this passionate guy.

Arie would definitely love your help. I’d love your help > I’m planning to take Arie’s direction and create a new arm for HugTrainCDA, this Summer 2012. I already have started laying the groundwork for major sponsors in Canada too, we love hugs.

Of course, I have my heart set on giving and accepting support from VIA Rail, an incredibly social Canadian corporation, as well as a major newspaper and a credit card company (both unnamed since I don’t want to pigeon-hole them into a commitment too early). Since we’ll be sending our Olympic athletes Team Canada to London 2012 a few months after HugTrainCDA, I am planning a West-coast to East-coast zig-zag to visit our Canadian athletes before they head off to the games of their lives.

I’m currently looking into the various Canadian charities/NFPs that work to help suffering people and to remove the stigma surrounding suicide awareness and reaching out for professional mental health help. Of course, CAMH is high on my list of prospects, but I wonder if there are any others you can help identify for me?

Please let me know if there is any way you can help Arie or myself, and we can help you in return.

All Aboard HugTrainUSA!

BY: Debbie Horovitch