For 22-year-old Bloomington native Mackenzie Nelson, Stay Another Day is a passion project, a mantra and a platform to discuss mental health. Nelson said they are three words she told herself growing up while dealing with depression and suicidal ideation, as a way of “taking it one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time."
“When I was younger, I couldn't think of one reason why I wanted to be alive, and I would constantly search for little messages and reminders, thinking my angel sent me a message,” she said. “And I feel like if I was younger and I saw this message, it would make me understand that I wasn't the only person in the world struggling.”
That message has permeated McLean County for the past two years, with Nelson selling Stay Another Day apparel and trinkets at her storefront and pop-ups and starting a community-wide conversation about mental health. She frequently visits area schools — including her alma mater, Normal Community High School [NCHS] — to raise awareness for mental health resources.
Nelson has also taken the mantra national, through her digital storefront and TikTok shop, where Stay Another Day has sold 25,000 shirts and counting. She’s celebrating SAD’s progress with an anniversary event at the storefront on Saturday.
While Stay Another Day is a small business — Nelson’s made a name for the brand and can support a 10-person staff and storefront in east Bloomington — she doesn’t approach the work in terms of profits.
“It's so easy for me to continue to keep working so hard just knowing that everything we're doing — if it impacts just one person — it's making all of the difference,” she said.
A pink chair and a vision
When Stay Another Day started, it wasn’t a mental health brand at all. It was just Mackenzie Paige, a small business Nelson created while hand-sewing scrunchies and headbands from her childhood home. After the business was a hit, she got a velvety, light pink chair for Christmas from her parents. When the pandemic hit, she sewed thousands of face masks that she sold through the Mackenzie Paige Etsy account.
The first mental health products she sold were sweatshirts with the words “stay another day” on them — which she designed in the same pink chair she’d come to associate with the business. It was 2022, and Nelson had been dealing with a depressive episode after taking a softball to the face and being essentially bedridden. There also had been four student-athletes who’d died by suicide during that time.
“And then one day, when I was sitting in my dad's basement, when I was hurt and sketching out designs, I realized that ‘stay another day’ could stand for ‘SAD,’ and I thought that was absolutely awesome because it's typically an emotion people don't like talking about, and the idea of the brand is wearing your heart on your sleeve and embracing that emotion and knowing that struggling with mental health is OK,” she said.
From that pink chair, Nelson said Stay Another Day was born, and the first storefront opened in August 2022. She said the business is entirely self-funded.
SAD in the community
In addition to selling merchandise, Nelson said she wants to start doing more public speaking in her free time — like at the area schools — about mental health resources. At one school, she said a survey she conducted showed only 24% of students were familiar with the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
Educating about that lifeline and its uses is a major function of SAD. Nelson puts the 988 logo on every piece of apparel she makes. Hoodies have it on the inside of the sleeve, T-shirts on the inside hem.
“It's a hidden reminder, but I do that for a reason,” she said. “When I called the lifeline, it was a time I wasn't really comfortable talking about the lifeline… but you know, it’s there. If you want to talk about it, you can show that.”
SAD beyond Bloomington-Normal
A portion of the proceeds from SAD sales go to 988. Nelson said she’d like to fund her own mental health resource down the line.
Tami Hagglund, a recent addition to the SAD staff who knew Nelson from NCHS, likely wouldn’t be surprised to see Nelson fulfill that goal. She described the 22-year-old as “very driven.”
“She actually knows what she wants, and she really goes after it, whether it just be going back to the schools and talking to the kids just about mental health and the things that she went through, or just how it affects your everyday life,” she said. “There's always something positive that can be made of everything, and this just shows it here [at SAD].”
Nelson said this anniversary has helped to remind her of the message Stay Another Day started with.
“At the end of the day, I really wanted to be someone that the 17-year-old version of myself would have needed,” she said. “Through this brand, I'm not only helping others, but it's a really motivating factor for my own mental health journey, as well. And I get to practice what I'm telling everyone else.”
Meanwhile, the organization is still in its fledgling years. Nelson’s only just swapped out the pink chair she sat in while starting the business for a newer model. Although, she said she’s keeping the old one in her office as another reminder — and message — of what she’s been through.
Stay Another Day's anniversary event will take place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 31, at the storefront located at 3006 Gill St. in Bloomington.
@wgltnews @stayanotherdayltd is turning two this month, and Bloomington native and founder Mackenzie Nelson is celebrating how far she and the business have come. There will be an event Aug. 31 starting at 11 a.m. at the SAD storefront. #Stayanotherday #mentalhealth ♬ original sound - WGLT - Bloomington-Normal NPR
