Creating a Safe Space: The Vision Behind Bash Bays for Mental Health and Community Connection

Welcome readers, customers, and everyone else who has made it this far! First and foremost, thank you for checking out my business, the services offered and for taking the time to read my first blog post!

We all have a story and this is my story of how Bash Bays was born. This is a regular conversation at the shop that I love having. Some customers may stay longer than expected to engage in conversation about Mental Health and Wellness and how we cope. This is a topic I am immensely passionate about.

Let me start by saying that I am NOT a mental health professional in any way, shape, or form. Nor do I envision a world without these much needed professionals to guide us through our struggles. I believe these professionals are essential to recovery and healing. My vision for Bash Bays is to augment the services of professionals and to be a unique and fun activity that gets your body moving and gives your mind a release that you may unexpectedly benefit from.

Life experience has taught me that we do not have enough tools to cope when faced with hard times. It is my hope that Bash Bays will become a big champion of Mental Health Awareness and Wellness.

My business saved me from suicide. Being in an incredibly dark place in late 2023 and into 2024, even with having family and professional support, I found myself contemplating taking my own life. Then one day in April of 2024, I made a few calls. First, I called an insurance company to see if my business idea could be insured. I was provided a very competitive quote and from there I stepped on the gas. I dove in head first and it was all-consuming. I admit, it was a welcome escape from the issues I faced (and still face today), but as every day passed, Bash Bays came more alive (no pun intended).

As I continued on the Bash Bays journey, my purpose evolved and became more refined. I wanted to create a space where people, like me, could vent their anger and frustration in a controlled environment, without judgement. Anger, fear, frustration, sadness, and grief are feelings we all experience throughout our lifetime. In my opinion, we have been conditioned to suffer in silence and/or mask how we feel. I say it's time to lift the veil and normalize these feelings. Perhaps I am naïve to think that by creating this space, I might be able to change the way we view mental health. However, if I can encourage just one person who wasn't talking about their Mental Health and Wellness yesterday to talking about it today, then mission accomplished. Even if Bash Bays is short-term venture, it will be worth it.

As part of this opportunity, I want to be a place of community connection and support and I've provided a few examples on how we've been able to embrace that below.

In March 2025, we partnered with The Shelter House for Smash the Stigma and raised $860 for their vital community services. It was a great experience and we learned a lot. Our hope is that our community fundraising and outreach will only get bigger and better. To make this event possible, we give a huge shout out to Hoppers Variety for donating the car that was smashed, Northwoods Towing for donating a driver and truck to take the smashed car to the scrap yard, and finally to Dutchak's Scrap Metal for giving us top dollar for the scrap metal, which was also donated back to the Shelter House.

We donate to organizations and organizations donate to us, a community donation loop if you will. Thank you to the following organizations for donating breakables to us and giving them another purpose - Twice as Nice, Community Clothing Assistance, The Power Center, Neebing Fire Department, Nolalu Fire Team, Antilla Northwest Tile, Floyd's Auto Glass, Glasshoppers, Bay Village Coffee, and Thunder Bay Broom and Chemical. We are so grateful that the list keeps growing!

We have also donated funds to the Kelly Mental Health Foundation, who directly provides services for our community members free of charge.

It is my goal that as Bash Bays grows, we are able to continue donating to community organizations who support Mental Health initiatives.

If you didn't gather this already, or haven't met me in person, I am a talker! You've made it this far and I have just one more topic to tell you about. I care about our environmental footprint and have invested in machines to repurpose the broken glass and glass-like products and have partnered with Bin There Dump That to recycle the broken e-waste. Some of our broken glass is turned into sea glass using tumblers, grit and a bunch of time and patience. I also purchased a glass crushing machine that crushes the broken glass into sand, which will have many more applications. I have so far filled 5 sand bags of crushed glass sand, which can be used for landscaping, flood relief, and potentially for sand blasting in the future. We are not quite ready for that yet but it's on the long list of ideas we have!

Thank you for taking the time to read! I hope to see you at Bash Bays soon. Come on back to the blog for more posts in the future.

Bring your stress, Leave the mess.

It's okay to NOT be okay.