How we got started

Our story.

After working at a local hospital for an extended amount of time, CEO, Makenna Blair, noticed an injustice in patient mental health within not only her institution, but many others. After noticing an improvement of patient mental health whej connecting with patients (especially long-term patients), Makenna decided to start small by getting her school involved.

It began with a meeting held in November of 2022 where Sherando High School’s DECA Chapter spent a few hours after school making get well cards for the patients of Winchester Medical Center. Accompained by brochures, they were sent to WMC and a notable difference was detected. After also seeing how much the patient mental health increased at the hospital throughout the gifting season, Makenna decided to take things further by creating self care baskets for the patients. This started the creation of the proposal for the nonprofit: Mental Health with Valley Health.

Months later, Makenna qualified for DECA’s International Career Development Conference, receiving immense support from the judges and various business affiliates she spoke with, destined to transform the proposal of “Mental Health with Valley Health” to what is now deemed The Chiaroscuro Project. TCP became officially recognized as a nonprofit organization in June of 2023; however, nothing slowed from there, rather, the creation of TCP served as a catalyst for an enumerable amount of opportunities.

Today, The Chiaroscuro Project has donated over hundreds of dollars of donations to many different institutions supporting justice for patient mental health. Some institutions include but are not limited to Valley Health, Georgetown University Hospital, Children’s National Hospital, and Chicanos Por La Causa. The immense amount of support TCP has received allocates for broader implementation of our services to a wide spread patient population.