In a single evening, your perspective can shift. When perspective shifts, lives can change.

The Human Library offers a rare opportunity to hear real stories that deepen understanding, reduce stigma, and empower you to better support yourself, the people you love, and the community around you.

It all starts with a simple but powerful act: showing up, sitting down, and listening.

Hosted by Simple Life Inc., this one-of-a-kind event invites guests into meaningful, face-to-face conversations with individuals who have lived experience with mental illness. These stories are not shared from a distance. They are shared person to person, in a setting designed to create connection, compassion, and lasting understanding.

Because when we truly hear one another, stigma begins to lose its power.

A Message from Founder Sheri Porter

For me, this evening is deeply personal.

I have spent years building Simple Life around one simple belief: no one should be invisible. Every person deserves to be seen with dignity, treated with respect, and given the opportunity to belong.

That belief has shaped the work of Simple Life from the very beginning. Every day, our team serves adults with mental disabilities who are too often underestimated, overlooked, or misunderstood. We work to create a place where they are valued, included, and empowered to live with purpose.

But over time, one truth became impossible to ignore.

The challenges surrounding mental health are far bigger than any one organization can solve alone.

They are showing up in our homes, our workplaces, our healthcare systems, and our communities. They affect the people we employ, the people we love, and the people we may pass every day without ever knowing what they carry.

That is why I created the Human Library.

What began as a mission to serve people too often overlooked has become a larger call to help our entire community see mental health differently.

I believe real change begins when we are willing to listen. When we sit across from someone, hear their story, and allow ourselves to see them fully, stigma begins to lose its power.

My hope for this evening is simple: that it widens the conversation, brings the right people into the room, and creates the kind of understanding that leads to more human leadership, stronger support systems, and real change.

Why This Matters to All of Us

Mental health is not a niche issue. It is a community issue.

It affects our families, our workplaces, our schools, our healthcare systems, and the way we show up for one another every day.

1 in 5 U.S. adults experiences mental illness each year
Mental health challenges cost U.S. employers an estimated $210 billion annually in lost productivity, absenteeism, and turnover
Stigma remains one of the biggest barriers to people seeking support

For employers, this can look like burnout, disengagement, absenteeism, turnover, or employees struggling in silence.

For families, it can look like fear, confusion, crisis, or the heartbreak of not knowing how to help someone you love.

For communities, it can mean isolation, misunderstanding, delayed care, and lost opportunities for people who deserve to be seen and supported.

The Human Library was created to meet that challenge in the most powerful way possible: through real human connection.

Because when people hear real stories directly from those with lived experience, they do not just learn more.

They lead differently.
They care differently.
They respond differently.

And that is where change begins.

What Guests Will Experience

The Human Library is designed to create the kind of conversations most people never have, but many wish they did.

Throughout the evening, guests will engage in personal, guided conversations with individuals who have lived experience with mental illness. These moments are built to foster understanding, replace assumptions with empathy, and offer insight that is both deeply human and immediately relevant.

Guests will leave with:

A deeper understanding of the real experiences behind mental health challenges
Greater compassion for the people in their families, workplaces, and communities
Practical perspective that can shape how they lead, support, and respond
A renewed sense of what it means to create a more informed and compassionate Siouxland

This is more than awareness.

It is a chance to be changed by what you hear and leave more equipped to help.

Why Attend

If you lead people, shape decisions, care for others, or influence this community, this evening matters.

The Human Library offers a rare opportunity to:

Better understand mental health through real, human stories
Gain insight that can help you support yourself or someone you love
Strengthen how you lead employees, teams, patients, clients, or community members
Join a meaningful gathering of Siouxland leaders committed to compassion and action
Support Simple Life’s mission to serve adults with mental disabilities with dignity and care

In a world full of noise, this evening offers something different.

A chance to slow down.
A chance to listen.
A chance to leave changed.

Simple Life Presents: The Human Library Event

Join Siouxland’s most influential leaders for a rare, limited-seat experience that builds understanding, reduces stigma, and strengthens how we lead our workplaces and community.