Florence Rosen, who's lived in Willow Glen for 48 years, was a prominent figure in the campaign to help the NAMI Santa Clara County (AMI-SSC) branch.

"Things have improved a little bit, but there's still more work to be done," Rosen said. "But I think today people are a lot more open toward the illness."

Rosen is representative of most members of the nonprofit NAMI. The organization is composed of friends and family members of someone with mental illness who are looking for help, information and support.

Rosen became heavily involved with the local organization soon after she was cleaning her 17-year-old daughter's room and found a note that read, "Something's going on in my head and I don't know what, and it scares me."

Her daughter, Judy, is now 54 years old and lives in a boarding care facility but is in good spirits. Judy had a chemical imbalance at the time that her illness was discovered but there were few resources available from either the government or the medical community.

"People with mental illness are at the bottom of the pyramid when it comes to support, resources or services," said Navah Statman, president of the AMI-SSC.

"Some of our members joke that if mental illnesses were like contagious diseases, we'd all be in better shape," Statman said.

AMI-SCC members usually need help with someone experiencing schizophrenia, manic depression or a bipolar disorder, according to Statman.

Rosen says the AMI-SCC began in 1975. The office was run out of a small house on Minnesota Avenue.

"We had some bad neighbors," Rosen said. "They didn't want to live next door to a place that worked with the mentally ill."

In 1993 AMI-SCC moved into a larger office in the postal annex office building further along Minnesota Avenue toward Lincoln Avenue.

AMI-SCC has always relied heavily on volunteers to run the office, said Rosen who became the office manager in 1977. Finding volunteers has never been a problem.

Statman said that AMI-SCC has about 400 dues-paying members, about 20 percent of whom are in Willow Glen.

Though NAMI's national awareness campaign ended in 2001, AMI-SCC still continues the momentum by holding support groups and monthly meetings, publishing a newsletter and operating campaigns.

The monthly meetings are usually held in the Hewlett-Packard Auditorium in Santa Clara. January's speaker is John Black, 49, who developed schizophrenia when he was 25 years old.

"I had my first onset of schizophrenia when I was 25, and it devastated me for the next 20 years," Black said.

Black now has his condition under control and works for a telecommunications company that is helping pay his tuition at a local community college.

"I want to eventually get a degree in social science or psychology," Black said. "I may become a lobbyist or go into public relations. I do want to stay in the field of mental health issues and to have an influence."

For the holidays, AMI-SCC is accepting donations of "functional gifts" such as clothes and wallets, combs, brushes and toiletries. Gifts or monetary donations for the holidays can be delivered to the AMI-SCC office until Dec. 23.

For more information about AMI-SCC, 1060 Minnesota Ave., call 408.280.7264 or visit www.namisantaclaracounty.org.