Starting May 9th, you may notice that the Kankakee County Courthouse will be changing colors. The Kankakee County Sheriff’s Department has
teamed up with the Iroquois-Kankakee Regional Office of Education’s Life Education Center and Pledge for Life Partnership to Illuminate the Courthouse.

On May 9th, the lights on the Courthouse will change to Lime Green to reflect the beginning of National Prevention Week and Mental Health Awareness Month. This inaugural illumination of the courthouse will mark the beginning of a new effort to illuminate the courthouse throughout the year to reflect holidays and raise awareness for important causes.

Sheriff Mike Downey is facilitating the project in hopes that after a year of challenges and hardships that have taken a toll on the mental and physical health of many in the
community, the illuminated building will raise awareness for important causes in the fields of prevention and mental health as well as remind the community of all the reasons we have to celebrate life.

To celebrate the inaugural lighting of the courthouse, we want to invite people who work in prevention as well as the general public to participate in a social media challenge. If you find time to swing by the Courthouse throughout the week of May 9th-15, we encourage you to take a selfie with the Illuminated Courthouse and post it on social media with the hashtag #nationalpreventionweek to help recognize the efforts of the prevention and mental health professionals in our community. Prevention and Mental Health professionals are in many ways like first responders and deserve recognition for all they do to invest in our community.

National Prevention Week will end with a youth event on Saturday, May 15th at the Farmer’s Market in Kankakee from 8-noon entitled Open Mindedness: End the Stigma Youth Mental Health and Wellness Fest. We hope that youth in the community join us for live music, food, and fun as we come together to end the stigma!