One hundred and twelve players are set to take the courts Saturday at Albuquerque's Jerry Cline Tennis Complex for the third annual CRC Serve It Up for Life Memorial Tennis Event, a tournament born out of a mother's loss and now raising real money for youth mental health programs across New Mexico.
The event honors Christopher Ryan, the son of Tammy Collins, who died by suicide after struggling with mental health issues for years, according to KRQE. The CRC Memorial Tennis Event states it was established in January 2024 after Christopher “Ryan” Collins lost his six-year battle with mental illness. Collins has said she hopes the tournament will help another family, even though she could not make the impact she wanted in her own son's life.
Every dollar raised at Saturday's tournament goes to Breaking the Silence New Mexico, a nonprofit that works in schools and communities to educate people and end the stigma, shame and secrecy surrounding mental illness and suicide, per KRQE's reporting. The organization describes itself as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 2011, and its mission centers on ending the stigma, shame, silence and secrecy surrounding mental illness and suicide, according to Breaking the Silence New Mexico.
Teens Helping Build the Curriculum
Breaking the Silence New Mexico also runs a youth advocacy group that turns to teens themselves for help building the curriculum the organization takes into schools. Ysidra Koch said the youth group lets the organization listen to teens, understand their experiences, and give them a voice with their peers, the station reported.
That curriculum, known as Talking Mental Health, reaches upper elementary, middle and high school classrooms around the state, according to Breaking the Silence New Mexico's own description of the program. The group says it is designed to help youth, families and professionals learn how to recognize, talk about and seek help when facing mental health challenges, per the organization's program page. Since 2020, the group says it has reached more than 13,500 students across New Mexico, according to the CRC Memorial Tennis Event's own account of the partnership.
Three Years of Fundraising Growth
The tournament's fundraising has grown each year it has been held. In its first two years, the CRC Memorial Tennis Event raised more than $41,000 for mental health programs through Breaking the Silence New Mexico, and the most recent year alone brought in $16,000, according to the event's own figures.
The stakes behind that fundraising are significant in New Mexico. Over the last 15 years, the state's suicide death rate has increased slightly and has run at least 50% higher than the national rate, according to the New Mexico Department of Health. In 2014, suicide was the eighth leading cause of death statewide and the second leading cause of death among people ages 10 to 39, the department has reported.
Saturday's tournament is one more attempt to chip away at that reality, one match and one conversation at a time. For Collins, the event remains tied to the memory of her son and a hope that the money raised, and the students reached, might spare another family the same grief.
