With an impressive roster of film and TV projects under her belt — including Riverdale and Twin Peaks, where she worked alongside her late mentor, David Lynch — Mädchen Amick has been making waves both on and off the screen. Beyond her work as an actress and director, she’s on a mission to make mental healthcare more accessible for all, inspired by her personal journey as a parent to a child with mental health challenges.
Amick will team up with Molly Ringwald and other stars March 8 at the fourth annual Don’t Mind Me gala at the Palm Springs Air Museum, raising funds for the organization’s new treatment center.
“There are so few places that offer these kinds of resources, which is why we jumped in to start our own — so people in need won’t be turned away,” Amick says. “We’re a nonprofit. Most places out there are for-profit, putting profit margins ahead of helping people. Our priority is helping our clients get well.”
Why is mental health so important to you personally?
My son was diagnosed during his sophomore year of college with Bipolar I disorder. It threw our family into this unknown world, and we’ve been navigating a broken mental healthcare system ever since. We launched Don’t Mind Me in May 2021. Our latest initiative is our Mental Health Recovery of Palm Springs treatment campus, which will hopefully open in 2026.
I’ve done a lot of lobbying on Capitol Hill and at the United Nations, fighting for policy change, talking to both the Trump and Biden administrations about how to make positive change by creating mental healthcare access for all.
What prompted you to focus your efforts here in the desert?
I grew up in the desert in Reno, Nevada, and I have completely fallen in love with Palm Springs and its chill vibe, which is very much what I need at this point in my life. I chose to give back here because it’s a valley known for recovery, and yet there’s no primary mental healthcare — our family learned that when our son needed support, so we decided to bring primary mental healthcare to the desert.
What are your plans for the new treatment center?
We are buying the old Desert Sun building, and we’ve applied for a very large Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program grant that will cover 90 percent of our project. Then we will start working on the treatment center.
It will be an all-in-one campus that will provide services to over 650 people at a time through all levels of care — crisis stabilization, detox, a sobering center, residential facilities for men, women, and nonbinary people, as well as supportive outpatient services, helping people get back on their feet by providing vocational skills, nutrition education, and more.
The program is a year because it takes at least that much time to get well, healthy, and back on your feet.
How will the Don’t Mind Me gala support your initiatives?
This is our fourth annual gala, which will happen at the Palm Springs Air Museum on March 8. Our fundraising focus this year is to raise the 10 percent match money for our treatment center project. Coincidentally, the gala will be held directly across the street from where the future Don’t Mind Me center will be built.
The theme for this year’s gala is a black-and-white masquerade ball. We’ll be honoring Molly Ringwald and Ashley Kolaya, of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative’s Mental Health Storytelling Coalition, as well as a community hero — an officer of the Palm Springs Police Association who is spearheading an initiative to bring behavioral health reps into their mental health crisis calls.
I’m also wrangling several of my Twin Peaks castmates. Many cast members are incredibly talented musical performers, and attendees will enjoy an incredible night of entertainment from the Twin Peaks cast. Tickets for the gala are available at dontmindme.org.
