GRAND RAPIDS — Steve Bloem has a can-do attitude when it comes to helping those with mental illness. So when funding for his Heartfelt Counseling Ministries began to run dry because of the economy, he knocked on doors in search of returnable cans and bottles.

Bloem has collected almost $13,000 worth of returnables since he began his can gathering in 2008. Funds help pay for counseling sessions for those who cannot afford them.them.

“This is a whole lot more than collecting cans,” he said. “I began helping people right at their door. There have been so many divine appointments. People come to the door and say things like, ‘Did my sister send you?’”

Bloem said he met a woman who told him that her husband had died recently; her dog was sick, and that she’d been lying in bed in the dark when he knocked. He talked with her about what she was going through. On New Year’s Eve, he knocked on a door to discover a woman on the phone with her bipolar friend. He talked on the phone to the friend for an hour.

“I see these things as examples that we should care about mental illness,” Bloem said. “When I knock on a door, it shows I care and I can make people more aware of mental illness.”

Bloem’s wife, Robyn, is his partner in the nonprofit counseling ministry and helps with the can collecting as well. Their son was recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder at the age 23, and Steve Bloem said he has battled bipolar II disorder for 25 years. He received electric shock therapy and takes four medications for bipolar II and depression.

“Mental illness and depression affects so many people,” Robyn Bloem said. “I’ve spoken to groups and asked how many people are affected by mental illness in some way — 90 percent raise their hands.”

The Bloems are authors of “Broken Minds: Hope for Healing When You Feel Like You’re ’Losing It,’” published by Grand Rapids-based Kregel Publications, and creators of Christians Afflicted with Mental Illness, or CAMI, which offers seminars, counseling and advocacy. They provide counseling at their offices at 1345 Monroe Ave. NW, over the phone and through their Web site.

They lead a support group for those with or who know someone with mental illness at 4:30 p.m. the first and third Sundays of the month at Rockford Baptist Church, 221 Courtland St. in Rockford.

“Mental illness and depression is rising,” said Robyn Bloem. “Americans don’t really care about insanity — bipolar and schizophrenia. But when it hits their family, then they start
to care.”

Honing the technique

Steve Bloem said he has refined his can collecting over the years. He knows which neighborhoods to avoid — either homeowners are indignant or they are using the cans to pay for their own groceries — and the best times to knock on doors.

He’s out five or six days a week, spending all day Saturday, Sunday afternoon and most weeknights gathering refundables. Some folks now save cans for him.

“We went out to collect money, but we find it’s much more than that,” said Robyn Bloem.

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