Rarely does anyone expect to lose someone to suicide, but it can strike anyone at anytime.

In 2008, more than 40,000 participants across the United States took steps to help save lives by walking in one of the 156 Out of the Darkness Community Walk locations.

Together, participants raised over $3.6 million for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

This year, one of the more than 200 community walk locations will be on Nov. 14 at Duncan Park, in hopes of creating awareness and more funds for aggressive mental health research within your local community.

Last year, this event raised approximately $3,000 in our area and has been helpful to several families in the time since the event.

With your help, each year this will continue to build, and we will be able to help more people, those who have lost someone to suicide and those who are depressed.

We can help save lives! Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of.

One goal of our local group is to let people know that they are loved and that there is help available.

Another goal is to erase the stigma associated with mental illness and suicide. Families and friends left behind after losing a loved one this way suffer tremendously. They feel isolated and alone. It feels like nobody at all understands. They are a great risk for becoming severely depressed themselves unless they get some type of help. I know. I suffered.

I lost my father in 2002 when he shot himself. Another misconception is that everyone who takes their life is crazy, etc. This is not the case either. My father was a happy (or so I thought) well-known businessman whose method of dying took everyone by complete surprise.

We need to erase the misconceptions, the stigma and we need to focus on helping fellow human beings around us whose lives are precious.

This is your invitation join us in the fight against mental illnesses, which is just as important as our fights against physical illness.

Please join us in bringing mental health out of the darkness.

Erin Sessions Frith

local event coordinator