Our Story

How eight high school sophomores transformed their idea for change into a national social enterprise, now recognized as the industry leader in mental health education!

Founding in 2012

LEAD (Let’s Empower, Advocate and Do) was founded in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy in 2012. In an effort to understand why such tragedies take place and how society can prevent future tragedies from occurring, a group of Leominster High School sophomores set out to plan the 26 Angels Benefit.

After presenting to United Way Youth Venture (UWYV) panel judges and receiving $1000 of seed money, the 26 Angels Benefit became a reality. The event’s mission was to honor the lives of the Sandy Hook tragedy victims, increase mental health and gun violence awareness and raise funds for community organizations. Over 500 people attended the event and $1000 was raised to be given to child-advocacy organizations in the community.

Narrowing in on Mental Health

By 2014, LEAD had given back over $10,000 to its community through service programs addressing substance use, domestic violence, poverty, homelessness, and mental illness. Members of LEAD testified at three public hearings on gun violence and mental health legislation at the MA State House. LEAD also won various awards including the UWYV Changemaker of the Year Award, the SHINE Initiative Community Hero Award and the MIAA Michael J. Kane Wellness Award for its authoring of a 900-page health education curriculum supplement, originally known as “Mental Health Promotion” (MHP). LEAD’s founders continued speaking at teen mental health workshops and conferences throughout MA, raising awareness on their innovative and holistic curriculum for schools.

“Revolutionizing Health Education”

After discussing the lack of mental health discussion in public schools, L.E.A.D. began developing the MHP curriculum, a supplement to the health education class already required to be taken by high school students before graduating.

In December of 2015, the MHP curriculum was featured on Boston’s ABC-TV news affiliate on the nightly television show, “WCVB Chronicle.” After partnering with Massachusetts Sen. Jen Flanagan, LEAD proposed Bill S.2114 ensuring all 700 high schools in Massachusetts would incorporate mental health into existing physical health-focused content. The bill continues to circulate in the MA Legislature today, spearheaded by state Rep. Natalie Higgins. However, you could say that LEAD ignited a movement in 2015, as states like NY, NJ, and VA have passed similar legislation since LEAD’s co-writing of the bill.

Nonprofit Incorporation 

In April of 2016, co-founder Kyrah Altman competed in the George Washington University’s New Venture Competition as one of the only freshman, female, and non-business undergraduate students, winning $32,500 in seed money to incorporate LEAD as a nonprofit corporation in MA. Three months later, Kyrah and Lauren became credentialed as the youngest Youth Mental Health First Aid instructors in the country for the National Council for Behavioral Health. LEAD has continued to pilot its Health Educator Toolkit, comprised of the MHP curriculum and an online HealthLab, in numerous school districts and states.

Building the Organization from a Dorm Room

From 2016-2019, and with the help of over thirty student interns, Kyrah and Lauren transformed the student-founded organization into a national social enterprise from their dorm rooms. During that time, LEAD was featured in the New York Times and on three national television stations and recognized for its innovative work in mental hearth education.

Kyrah jokes that her senior year was spent cooped up in the GW Innovation Center and “pretending to be a student.” While her teachers rarely saw her, she graduated with honors and even had time to represent Massachusetts as the state’s Cherry Blossom Princess in the 2019 National Cherry Blossom Festival. Before graduating with a bachelors degree in human services, social justice, public health, and entrepreneurship, Kyrah competed in a variety of venture competitions and was named the 3rd Best Studentpreneur in the United States by EO’s Global Student Entrepreneurship Awards. Kyrah was also nominated as one of Loreal’’s Women of Worth and LEAD was identified as one of DC’s “Red Hot Nonprofits” in 2019.

In 2019, Lauren also recently graduated from Northeastern University with a bachelors degree in linguistics, cultural anthropology, and psychology. During college, Lauren competed in and won a variety of venture competitions for LEAD, including Princeton’s Tiger Launch competition. She also traveled the country providing MHFA trainings to community organizations and leading a team of interns to rewrite and publish LEAD’s MHP curriculum. Under Lauren’s leadership, the MHP curriculum was rewritten and transformed into the nation’s first original, evidence-based, and holistic health education course for high schools. Lauren is currently expanding the curriculum, now known as TryHealth, and preparing to pilot it in an entire PreK-12 school district in 2021. LEAD intends to pilot TryHealth as the new standard for health education nationwide, as health should inherently include both the mind and body.

Full-Time Launch in 2019

After graduating from the George Washington University, Kyrah returned home to Massachusetts to join co-founder Lauren Wilkins as the organization’s first full-time employees. As predicted, LEAD’s first full-time year was stressful and financially unstable. However, Kyrah and Lauren persevered, scaled the organization to a national level, generated over $100K in revenue, and continued growing LEAD’s team of interns and board members.

LEAD also expanded its programming to serve under-served and high-risk audiences, such as summer camps, sports teams and athletic departments, and even corporations! To subsidize the cost of training for low-income organizations, LEAD launched its “one for one” model called the Robin Hood Initiative. This allows companies who receive training from LEAD to sponsor back free training to youth-serving community organizations.

In summer of 2019, Lauren and Kyrah moved into their first office space at Boston's NonProfit Center. Soon after, Kyrah was named one of Boston's 10 Outstanding Young Leaders by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, an award once given to JFK!

In fall of 2019, LEAD launched the LEAD Academy, the organization’s official train-the-trainer program, bringing LEAD's innovative courses to over 30 instructors in 20 states within months! LEAD launched its train-the-trainer program as a way to make certification of large amounts of youth and adults more affordable and accessible to the community. LEAD’s School, Team, Camp, and Corporate Academies are available on LEAD’s Learning Lab.

The COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020

While LEAD intended to move many of its in-person courses online in 2020, the team did not expect to be required to do so out of necessity or so quickly.

In spring of 2020, the COVID-19 Pandemic hit LEAD and the country in a shocking and life-altering way. At the time, LEAD was intending to enter one of our busiest seasons of the year…summer! This is due to LEAD’s innovative Camp Mental Health certification, the nation’s first early intervention course tailored to a summer camp setting.

Right as LEAD was expecting a large amount of camp-driven revenue, LEAD was financially gutted by the Pandemic AND Kyrah lost her dog (AKA the company mascot - Bambi the Beagle) to bladder cancer.

Both Kyrah and Lauren went over six months without taking a salary, while also working part-time jobs to pay their bills. Kyrah continued to work full-time for LEAD, in addition to working 40-hour weeks at part-time jobs during the Pandemic. Kyrah often jokes that while she was at another job, her heart and brain were always with - and working on ideas for - LEAD.

The LEAD team spent most of the Pandemic moving all of its programming online, making it accessible to people all over the world through a learning management system. Beginning with a COVID-prompted course, “Yikes: Coping with the Anxiety of Uncertainty,” LEAD began creating self-paced e-courses to be hosted on LEAD’s Learning Lab. Today, LEAD’s Learning Lab is your ultimate destination for proactive and no-fluff mental health education, featuring courses on topics ranging from self-care and stress management to suicide prevention and trauma-informed care.

In a recent Facebook post, Kyrah shared a moment of vulnerability with friends and family,

“I got zero sleep as I was working 60-80 hour-weeks and I truly doubted every entrepreneurial bone in my body. I felt incredibly incapable, lost, and stuck in a horrible battle with myself. ‘Why am I choosing a difficult life?’ I'd ask, especially because of my difficult childhood. I couldn't even reach out or connect for months on end because I was fighting for the organization's and my team's survival."

I asked, ‘Why me?’ I said, ‘I am not the CEO LEAD deserves or needs to pivot through this Pandemic. I can't do it. If I was good enough, we'd be surviving. We'd have enough money for salaries. We'd be growing. I must not be good enough.’ I considered giving up. I looked through an endless amount of job opportunities I was qualified for and would have made great money doing. I cried. I fought. I stopped listening to others who really didn't know the business as I did. I looked at job opportunities again, only to turn down every real offer I received. I remained true to my vision for LEAD. I adapted. I experimented. I learned a bajillion new skills in a short period of time. I slowly began to trust myself and to risk everything on myself. I began to appreciate myself for my entrepreneurial brain and self-motivated personality.

AND friends, both I and LEAD came out the other side stronger than ever! Right now, I can barely keep up with our general or my personal inbox. I am managing seven interns. We just hired a part-time salesperson to grow a national sales team. And our programs are booming, thanks to the wonderful world of e-learning and the high-quality of our curricula.

I am beyond grateful. I am beyond terrified that next month will be another unexpected financial gutting. I am beyond excited for the future of mental health education. I am beyond inspired by the ways LEAD has impacted others' lives and empowered them to ask for more for themselves. And I am healing, as I continue to grow a social enterprise that empowers others to heal and recover from mental illnesses and substance use disorders in a cruel world. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being part of this journey!”

Kyrah continues to serve as the CEO of LEAD, Inc., travel the world, and speak about the impact of social entrepreneurship on trauma survivors, the importance of proactive mental health education in schools, and the idea that "while not everyone has a mental illness, everyone can improve their mental health."

Lauren moved into a part-time role as LEAD’s Director of Education, spearheading her efforts on the continued development of the TryHealth curriculum. LEAD intends to pilot and evaluate this curriculum, the nation’s first PreK-12 holistic health and wellness curriculum, in the upcoming year in Woburn, MA Public Schools.

LEAD intends to continue scaling nationally to maximize social impact and transform mental health education as we know it. LEAD's co-founders also travel the country sharing their story, speaking on social innovation panels, and teaching in private courses and at conferences. If you see us in the near future, please stop and say hello! We love to partner, collaborate, and learn from other changemakers in our community, whenever we have the chance.

For more information or to get in touch with our #LadyBoss, please email info@LEADnow.org.