#BellLetsTalk Goes Viral

On January 28, 2014 a hashtag started making waves on Twitter with everyone from celebrities to athletes to politicians chiming in. That hashtag was #BellLetsTalk. Bell Let's Talk is a Mental Health Initiative started by Bell Canada Enterprise (BCE), the largest communications company in Canada. It encourages people to raise awareness for mental health and end the negative stigma associated with those words.

For every tweet, retweet, and mention of #BellLetsTalk, BCE pledged to donate $.05 to mental health related charities.

It started with Canadian based companies, groups, and people using the hashtag:

   

But quickly athletes, writers, and teams from the NHL started to pick up on the trend and join the conversation about mental health:

 

In the offseason of 2011, the NHL lost three players to mental illness: Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien, and Wade Belak. Campaigns like Bell Lets Talk create dialogue about the issues these hockey players faced and that many members of the general population face today. The hockey community rallied around this cause like it was their own, spreading positive messages about mental health all day. 

They even garnered the support from a few celebrities: 

It is always amazing to see a sport come together in support of something other than the game. It shows that the athletes who get paid millions of dollars to play a sport have other things on their mind than the competition. Over $5.4 million was raised on January 28, 2014 because of tweets and posts on Twitter and Facebook. And people still say the hockey community is small?

If you'd like more information visit the Bell Lets Talk website!