The community center will provide mental health services.
PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, Md. — Prince George’s County announced Sunday it will invest $30 million to renovate the Temple Hills Community Center in partnership with Taraji P. Henson and the Boris Henson Foundation. Once it’s finished, it will provide vital mental health resources for the community.
Henson hosted the ‘Can We Talk?’ Arts and Wellness Summit this weekend to address the importance of mental health.
“I always wanted to come back and pour into the community that poured into me,” Henson told WUSA9.
She says the motivation to fight for mental health resources comes from her father, whom she named the foundation after. The foundation’s website says her father, Boris, dealt with untreated mental health struggles after he served during the Vietnam War.
“I’m just grateful. I feel like God is proud of me, he’s proud of me,” said Henson. “Finally, the world knows your name, so you don’t have to haunt me. He always said, ‘I want to be famous.'”
Joining Henson was fellow DMV native and musician Wale, who says, despite his fame, the bright lights can sometimes get to him and affect his state of mind.
“Even all these cameras. I had to learn to deal with this. I’m a very shy individual. I had to come to grips with that, so I wore my shades, talk slower,” said Wale. “These are all things that are connected to the mental.”
The renovated community center will house programming from Henson’s foundation. It will focus on non-traditional therapy like yoga, arts, and music.
Council Chair Edward Burroughs says this currently under-utilized community center will soon have world-class mental health programming for people of all ages.
“Community centers need to evolve when the needs of the community evolve. No longer can a community center be a place where young people go and play basketball and go home, and they sit vacant during the other parts of time,” said Burroughs.
“People from around the world recognize the importance of Prince George’s County, but it also shows that we recognize the importance of taking care of our people and ensuring that they have mental health resources available to them,” said Prince George’s County Executive Aisha Braveboy. “Especially our young people who need culturally competent services in order to reach them where they are.”