Seth Meyers, Jake Gyllenhaal Support Free Therapy for Veterans

(Bloomberg) -- When Zach Iscol founded the Headstrong Project more than five years ago to provide mental health care to veterans like himself, he couldn’t have known how helpful his social capital would be.

Most nonprofits only dream of having talents like Seth Meyers and Jake Gyllenhaal headline their benefit year after year. Iscol, a former Marine, counts both as friends through childhood summers spent on Martha’s Vineyard. That’s where he met Gyllenhaal and lawyer Alexi Ashe, who introduced him to Meyers when she started dating the comedian (now her husband) about a decade ago.

"I’ve known Zach for a really long time, and I’ve just been lucky to get involved via him," Meyers said in an interview at Headstrong Project’s fifth-annual benefit Monday night. "Each year you come, your appreciation for what this event does grows exponentially."

Later, hosting at the lectern of Pier Sixty, Meyers offered a peek inside their families’ friendship.

"My son Ashe, who is a year and a half, is very into Zach’s daughter India," Meyers said. "It’s very cute, they hang out together. India will have French fries and Ashe will eat some of the French fries. My wife will even say to Ashe, ‘Do you think you’ll marry India?’ And then I’ll say, ‘Her dad is a former Marine, those are her French fries.’"

Glamour Quotient

Boosting the glamour quotient of a fundraiser, while important, only goes so far. It was Iscol’s other friends who worked at Kayne Anderson Real Estate Advisors that hatched the idea for the Headstrong Project.

Iscol sought out Al Rabil and Dave Petrucco for advice on a business venture, when the conversation turned to his Marine service. He told the two that his combat battalion lost 33 members during deployment in Fallujah, Iraq. Another 23 had committed suicide.

"Al asked, ‘Why can’t our veterans get the same type of care that we can get?’” Iscol recalled. "If one of us can see the top psychiatrist in New York City tomorrow morning, regardless if they accept health insurance or how busy they are, why can’t our veterans."

Iscol then reached out to a woman he’d met at his bar mitzvah: Ann Beeder, a psychiatrist at Weill Cornell Medicine.

"Ann was always a resource to me when I was in the Marine Corps," Iscol said in an interview. "I had a marriage issue, an alcohol issue, she was always my first call."

Together they shaped a program with a mission of providing "the type of care any of us in this room would be able to receive," Iscol said. "It had to be without paperwork, without any bureaucracy or wait time, without cost."

Other Cities

Treatment started for veterans in New York, and expanded to other cities once it was clear what they were offering was effective. The model relies on networks of qualified caregivers vetted by Beeder, who also developed treatment protocols.

"We pay them their market rates," Iscol said. "But we also require they submit their notes with our team at Cornell, so we know their outcomes, and we know the people in our treatment programs are getting better. And if they’re not, we can adjust our care to make sure they are. The cost is less than $5,000 for each veteran."

At the benefit, Gyllenhaal read a letter from a veteran who received treatment that has helped him experience the joy of his daughter’s birth, being a father and the simple act of taking her to the beach on a hot day.

Iscol said he’s learned that the biggest barrier Headstrong faces isn’t getting veterans over the stigma of getting help. "It’s the stigma that most people don’t realize mental health care is a thing that actually happens. If you get the right help, you can absolutely recover. Trauma is treatable."

To contact the reporter on this story: Amanda Gordon in New York at agordon01@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Larry DiTore, Steven Crabill