North Liberty parents create organization focused on mental health awareness

NORTH LIBERTY — North Liberty parents Joe and Jennifer Skelley, sharing the story of their late teenage son to help others, want to normalize talking about mental health and asking for help because “mental illness does not discriminate.”

“You never know what someone is going through,” Joe said. “Kindness goes a long way,” Jennifer added.

Their 15-year-old son, Owen, was kind and humble. He was the first one to ask friends and family how their day was going or if they needed anything. He was always checking in on others, but hid his own mental health struggles.

Owen died by suicide in March 2022. Not wanting another family to go through what they did, the Skelleys started the Big O Foundation a few months later. It is dedicated to supporting children, teenagers and their families facing mental health challenges.

Among the organization’s goals are to raise awareness about mental health and eliminate the stigma of talking about it. It should be as normal to ask for mental health help as it is to go to a doctor, Jennifer said.

Over the last year, the foundation has hosted events and speakers, awarded scholarships to students and served as a resource for families. The newly renamed Owen Skelley Field at Penn Meadows Park in North Liberty will further promote the importance of talking openly about mental health and checking in on your loved ones.

“We are too late to help Owen, but we're not too late to help everybody else that might be struggling,” Joe said.

‘Our goal is to educate’

Joe said it would’ve been easier for him and Jennifer to not do anything after Owen died. But the Skelleys didn’t want other parents to go through what they did.

“Owen's not the first and he won't be the last,” Joe said. “Our goal is to educate kids that what Owen did is not an option.”

Joe said struggling with mental health is something that can happen to anyone. He noted how Owen was an A student who loved being around others, playing baseball and supporting his friends and siblings.

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Joe and Jennifer said they felt the community’s support after Owen’s death and how North Liberty residents “grieved right along with us.”

The Skelleys moved to North Liberty from Burlington in 2015. Jennifer works for the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and Joe is an entrepreneur and property owner.

“The community support has been amazing, and ever since we started the Big O Foundation, the support keeps pouring in for us,” Jennifer said. “We couldn't ask for a better community to be a part of, and I think it shows what an impact Owen made in his short 15 years.”

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Owen Skelley Field

The foundation advocated for the renaming the Babe Ruth Baseball Field to Owen Skelley Field at Penn Meadows Park. The foundation first presented to the North Liberty City Council in November 2022 and the renaming was unanimously approved in May.

The central location of the field and Owen’s love for baseball made it the right venue to spread the organization’s mission, the Skelleys said.

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Amy Bartachek, a board member of the foundation, said it was “quite surreal” to stand in front of the council and city staff and discuss the importance of talking about mental health and what the renaming would mean for the city.

“The field is going to allow the Big O Foundation, our city and community to have a venue to tell Owen's story, to provide that mental health education and awareness and resources to youth and their families,” Bartachek said.

Joe added how the baseball field isn’t a memorial for Owen but rather a way to educate, inform, inspire and motivate community members.

The foundation will install signage and QR codes at the baseball field highlighting the foundation’s work, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and the I’m Glad You Stayed Project. There also will be inspirational messages and quotes.

For parents who might want to talk with their children about mental health but aren’t sure how, the field can help get the conversation started, said Uby Martinez, a foundation board member and Liberty High School baseball coach.

The signage will be installed throughout the field, including in the bathrooms, the dugouts and around the field so even those walking past will see.

“Our signage and our message is focused on preventing what (Owen) ultimately did and to be proactive about communicating and talking about mental health,” Joe said.

The field is also a way to promote physical activity and spending time outside, both of which have positive impacts on mental health, Jennifer added.

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What’s next?

Joe said the foundation is just getting started. As the organization looks ahead, there are plans for more events, speakers and continuing to partner with other organizations.

The city of North Liberty will host a mental health and wellness summit in late July, with the Big O Foundation as one of the organizations involved in the event.

Jennifer said there will be an event in August at the Coralville Performing Arts Center with Emma Benoit, who attempted suicide in high school and is now an advocate for suicide prevention and awareness. Benoit, who is from Louisiana, shares her story of recovery in her documentary, “My Ascension.”

Bartachek said a big focus of the foundation will be on finding ways to partner with the Iowa City Community School District and, hopefully, starting more conversations about mental health within the schools.

Martinez wants people and other communities to know that the foundation is a resource for them.

“There's so many of us that have children that suffer from anxiety or depression,” Bartachek said. “(Owen’s) death devastated so many of us. … Having conversations we did not have before has made just a really huge impact on a lot of families.”

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