Customers at Protein Bar may do a double take when they see that the healthy fast food chain has teamed up with Brandon Marshall to sell a blended drink called Crazy Stigma Green. I know I did. And according to Marshall, who was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in 2011 and has dedicated himself to raising awareness for mental health causes, that was the point.
“We’re never ones to run away from controversy or things (that are) thought-provoking,” Marshall said Friday at the first annual Limelight fundraiser at Morgan Manufacturing, which benefited the mental health-focused Thresholds and Brandon Marshall Foundation. “Protein Bar gave us an amazing opportunity to be thought-provoking but at the same time create conversation and at the same time raise money.”
Marshall said it was his wife Michi who came up with the name. Does this mean they’re embracing the word “crazy”?
“You’re talking to someone who was in McLean Hospital (in Belmont, Mass.) for three months,” Marshall said. “I love playing with words, just like how you can’t understand it, that’s exactly (what) we want to create. If we say ‘Hey, we’re raising awareness on mental health,’ nobody cares about that. When you use the word ‘crazy,’ when you take all these things that are taboo and supposed to be deviant and you put it together, it creates that reaction, that look in your face right there.”
A dollar from every Crazy Stigma Green drink sold will go toward the Project 375 Foundation. The drink is made up of coconut water, pineapple, avocado, banana, apple and kale.
“Initially we wanted to break stigma,” Michi said. “And in order to break stigma, you have to meet it head on. So with mental health and being termed crazy, we decided to create a color called Crazy Stigma Green to break the stigma of mental illness.”
Guests at Limelight were encouraged to wear lime green, the designated color for mental health awareness (you might remember Marshall was fined for wearing green cleats during a game last October in honor of Mental Health Awareness Week). Although Thresholds’ website said it has been “providing healthcare, housing, and hope for thousands of persons with mental illnesses in Illinois” since 1959, Marshall believes the general public is just now becoming more informed on the subject.
“It’s so important for us to talk about it right now and create this conversation, which we like to say ‘Paint the world lime green,'” Marshall said when addressing Limelight guests that evening, “because where we’re at today is where the cancer community and the HIV community was 20-25 years ago.”
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