Students raised more than $21,000 for suicide prevention at the nation’s largest Out of the Darkness Walk on a college campus yesterday.
Leah Sukri, a counselor with the University Help Center, began leading this campus’s walk last year after an American Foundation for Suicide Prevention representative contacted her about the program.
“We thought that this was a really great opportunity for us to show that suicide isn’t the answer and that we can always do more to help,” the junior biology major said.
The foundation holds Out of the Darkness walks on college campuses and in communities across the country. The walk, the university’s third, grew significantly on the campus this year, becoming the largest campus walk out of 100 in the nation, area director Ryan Newcomb said.
At least 464 students registered and collected donations to raise money for suicide prevention research, education and programming, Sukri said.
“To see it going from raising three or four thousand dollars last year to over $20,000 this year is amazing,” Newcomb said.
Newcomb, who has suffered from chronic depression throughout his life, said campus walks provide a great opportunity to break the stigma surrounding suicide and begin a dialogue about mental health issues among college students.
“Suicide is the second leading cause of death for 15- to 24-year-olds, so this is a crucial demographic that we have to reach out to and let students know it’s OK to seek help,” he said. “There is treatment. Suicide is preventable. There’s hope and there’s treatment. Depression is treatable, and anxiety is treatable. That’s the message we want to drive home.”
The walk’s growth this year was due largely in part to the involvement of Greek life. Lambda Chi Alpha and Alpha Chi Omega sponsored the event, and 20 chapters made teams to participate, sophomore marketing and psychology major Jacob Katinsky said.
Katinsky, vice president of Lambda Chi Alpha, helped conduct public relations for the event. He said suicide prevention is a personal issue for his chapter, and he wanted to expand the event by involving other chapters.
“You have a lot of manpower when you’re in a fraternity or sorority,” Katinsky said. “We kind of wanted to, and I think we did, create a friendly environment, a competitive one, but in a good way. People kind of see each other compete to raise more money for the walk.”
Representatives of Theta Pi Sigma, Active Minds and the University Health Center also helped plan the walk, Sukri said. After the walk, student comedy group Erasable Inc. performed and students had the opportunity to write messages and letters of encouragement with the You Matter campaign and the A Letter For You Project.
Junior accounting major Siona Slepoy lost her father to suicide in March 2013. She said she does not want others to feel the pain she and her family felt.
“I am so proud to look around me today and see that I am not alone,” Slepoy told the crowd. “I am so proud that we as a community have stepped up not just to show UMD that we care, but to bring suicide out of the darkness.”
Junior environmental science major Julia Simmons participated in an Out of the Darkness Walk in her hometown after a close family friend committed suicide when she was in high school. Simmons, a member of Alpha Chi Omega, became involved in planning the campus walk this year because the issue hits “close to home” and also affects many of her peers.
“It’s so relevant to college students. It’s one of the leading causes of death of kids our age,” Simmons said. “This is a really great cause that can change so many people’s lives, and just by being here and walking, there’s a support group here at Maryland.”
Sophomore kinesiology major Rachel Jessamy, another member of Alpha Chi Omega, said students might not be able to tell if their peers are struggling with mental health issues.
“You never know what someone’s going through. Someone could seem perfectly fine and you never know that they may be thinking about committing suicide or be having these thoughts,” Jessamy said. “It’s important to be aware that there’s people who have these feelings and just to be there for them.”
