Welcome to Walt’s Waltz
Let’s Stop Dancing Around Mental Health Conversations.
Walt's Waltz ® is a compass and a megaphone for mental health education, equity, and stigma-free communities - born from one family's loss and carried forward by everyone who joins the step.
3 Steps, Danced on Repeat
Every program we run moves through the same three-beat rhythm. It's not a metaphor for its own sake — it's literally how we build a stigma-free community, one organization at a time.
EDUCATION
Professionally led training and screenings that help people understand the severity of their own anxiety or depression - the first step toward taking it seriously.
EQUITY
Advocacy for equitable access to mental health care and research funding, so support isn't determined by zip code, income, or background.
STIGMA-FREE
Partner organizations pledge to become Walt's Waltz Stigma-Free Zones - workplaces, schools, and campuses where mental health can be discussed
About Walt’s Waltz
Join us for upcoming events
Walt's Waltz was founded in Greenville, South Carolina, in the days after we lost our son and brother, Walt, to treatment-resistant anxiety and PTSD on August 22, 2019. Walt used to gently remind his mom, "Mom, you have to live," whenever he saw she needed a break. What began as a promise between a mother and son has
grown into a regional movement to end the stigma around mental health - in workplaces, schools, faith communities, and homes.
We believe every person deserves clarity about the severity of what they're carrying, and a safe space to talk about it without shame.
That belief is the whole reason we exist.
Artist Nick Burns, who also painted Walt's 8x8 portrait, Gentle Giant, has now completed a new mural at Haywood Mall's lower entrance. It shows Paris Mountain, where Walt loved to hike, mountain bike, and swim, and features our signature mascot butterfly. We'll be unveiling it as part of our Suicide Awareness Month programming.
Ways we show up in our community
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Hands-on sessions using art as self-expression, covering stigma, the mental health continuum, and practical self-care - with variations like Painting Wellbeing, Painting Grief, and Music, Art & Poetry, adapted for students, parents, seniors, workplaces, and community groups.
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We engage stakeholders as partners, not spectators.
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Every proposal is anchored in empirical evidence.
Many of our programs and services are offered in English and Spanish
Our Impact
through workshops, tabling, and presentations
9,000+ people reached each year
25 partners
for Stigma-Free Environments
in Painting Mental Health Workshops since 2022
5,500+ participants
of their comfortability talking about their mental health