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Walking to Aid
Mental Illness in Virginia
When we tell people that Xerox serves its
clients’ communities, we mean it literally.
We don’t just support client operations and
provide innovations to help them serve
program members. Our team members live in
and are part of our clients’ communities, and
we are always looking for opportunities to
become more involved.
For example, one of our teams in Virginia
recently undertook a fundraising effort to raise
awareness and funds on behalf of mental
illness. Xerox has been involved for several
years with Cover Virginia, the state’s Medicaid
program, and its administering agency, the
(also known as DMAS). We provide call center
support and Medicaid application processing
services. In effect, we act as a one-stop shop
for Medicaid, collecting program applications
and processing them while providing
membership maintenance and renewals.
In 2015, we expanded that relationship by
administering the Governor’s Access Plan, or
GAP. This program was founded to integrate
primary and behavioral health services and
care coordination for uninsured Virginians with
serious mental illnesses. GAP provides limited
medical and behavioral healthcare coverage
for mental health and substance use disorder
services, medical doctor visits, medications,
24-hour crisis line access, recovery navigation
services and case management. These
programs help Medicaid better address the
severity of these members’ conditions and
improve their lives by connecting them with
more comprehensive care.
GAP is managed by Leigh Lowery in our
Richmond office. Last fall, a friend of hers
(a manager in the state’s Community
Services Board) introduced her to the Virginia
chapter of NAMI, the
NAMI is the country’s largest
grassroots mental health organization, with
affiliates in every state providing support,
education and advocacy for individuals and
families affected by mental illness. The group
also works to shape public policy and improve
mental healthcare by securing funding and
resources and improving accountability.
Leigh and the GAP team saw many parallels
between their goals and NAMI’s and wanted
to get involved. The team had been planning
to have a community service project, and the
perfect opportunity was through
Part fundraiser and part 5K
fun walk, the event gave the team a
chance to support the mentally ill in their
community directly.
Leigh’s team began by organizing an
internal effort to drive donations from Xerox
employees through some very novel activities.
The first was a Jeans Day effort in which
people could pay $2 a day to wear jeans in the
office – or a month and a half for a donation
of $35 or more. On the more extreme end
was the Pie in the Face Raffle. Thirteen Cover
Virginia managers and supervisors offered
themselves up to be hit with a pie in the face
by a winning bidder. Their efforts paid off
nicely, with more than $200 raised for NAMI
before the walk began.
On October 17th, 20 volunteers
from GAP came to Glen Allen, Va.
to field a team for the official 5K
walk. They chose the name aGÁPe,
which was the highest form of love
in ancient Greece and associated
with brotherly love and charity.
It was a carnival atmosphere that included
events for children as well as information from
Virginia about mental health resources and
speakers to raise awareness. Team aGÁPe
performed well, bringing in a total of $725 in
donations from our staff and their families
and friends.
Our clients in Virginia’s Medicaid program were
very happy about our support of the NAMI
event. “[We] were extremely excited to have
the GAP team participate in the NAMIWalk,”
said Janice Holmes, Operations Manager
for the Marketing and Enrollment Services
Division of DMAS. “It certainly shows the
commitment this team has for the program
and its participants by going above and
beyond to support the community.”
