Alger, survivors spread suicide awareness at campus walk

By GRANT JOHNSON & ELEANOR SHAW The Breeze

East Campus’s Festival lawn glistened under a cerulean blue sky, dotted with stratus clouds, and a slight chill. JMU community members gathered there Sunday not to savor a quintessential spring afternoon but rather unite in the fight to prevent suicide. Roughly 200 JMU student-athletes, LGBTQ+ individuals, representatives from student organizations, survivors and community members adorned colored beads that signified their relationship to suicide — something that would otherwise be left unseen. People who’ve personally struggled wore green, those who’ve lost a loved one wore purple and others who supported the cause wore blue.

Some attendees spoke at a lectern in front of Festival Conference and Student Center overlooking the lawn, all with messages of hope, compassion and choosing life.

For Kevin Long, board member of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) and father of a daughter at Turner Ashby High School who died by suicide: “Thank you for sharing your journey with us.”

And senior Emma Coleman: “Thanks to you, we remain hopeful.”

And, for President Jonathan Alger: “No one, no one walks alone.”

The speakers kickstarted JMU’s Out of the Darkness Campus Walk, brought together by Coleman, who worked with the AFSP to organize the event. Coleman said she was asked during winter break to organize the walk as the event’s chair and has spent her semester working with AFSP.

“We just really want to start breaking the stigma of mental health and suicide,” Coleman said, whose high school friend, Jared, died by suicide last year. “It’s something that’s near and dear to my heart.” The event also serves as a fundraiser, according to AFSP’s website. Individuals and “teams,” or campus groups, submitted their fundraised money before and at the event. JMU Athletics fundraised the most money, $740, among the 13 teams who donated. The event raised $8,290 of its $10,000 goal as of Sunday at 5:07 p.m.

Emily Bacalis, senior events manager for the Virginia chapter of the AFSP, said all money fundraised by the event goes toward suicide prevention, research and other programs for the local community.

Junior Alli Kreisman fundraised $1,575, the most money among individuals. Kreisman’s mom died by suicide when she was 13 and, since then, she said her family has been “really passionate” about suicide awareness.

Coleman designated Kreisman to walk in the front of the group as the event’s top individual donor. Kreisman said it’s important to lead by example because while most students realize mental health is an important issue on college campuses, they aren’t proactive about change.

Kreisman said she’s trained in active listening and suicide prevention for safeTALK and D.E.E.P. Impact and is also involved in Dukes Support Network, a new organization that looks to build community and conversation among students starting with its small-group discussions later in April. Kreisman has especially tried to emphasize mental health awareness to her boyfriend and his male friends, she said, who are more likely to “suffer in silence.”

But being together on a walk helps those suffering.

“It definitely makes you feel less alone,” Kreisman said. “The more talk, the less stigma.”

SGA president-elect Nate Hazen, who also attended the walk, said raising mental health and suicide awareness is at the forefront of his initiatives. He said being surrounded by people who’ve been affected by suicide and hearing how JMU is trying to better the campus through events like the Out of the Darkness Walk is “beautiful.”

Hazen said JMU men’s soccer redshirt junior Rodrigo Robles, a friend of his and executive member of JMU’s student-athlete advisory council (SAAC), invited Hazen to the walk and told him to bring his friends along.

“Suicide awareness and prevention, obviously, goes without saying this campus has been riddled with tragedy under those circumstances, especially pertaining to athletes,” Hazen said. JMU softball player Lauren Bernett died by suicide April 25, 2022. “It’s just a beautiful opportunity just for this part of campus to just be together and talk about this.”

Many organizations not affiliated with JMU attended the event: Q101, Lock and Talk Virginia, Health Connect America and the ARROW Project ran tables with stress balls, magnets, T-shirts and more on display.

Olivia Sablich, a JMU junior and intern at ARROW Project, said the nonprofit provides mental health services like telehealth and outpatient care to people in the Staunton area and also runs wellness groups at JMU. Sablich said she wanted walkers to know they can reach out and get help when they need it.

Sablich, Kreisman and Coleman said they feel like JMU’s done more to increase mental health awareness this year, between the walk and TimelyCare, a free virtual mental health service offered by JMU’s Counseling Center. Last school year, on top of Bernett’s death, two other people died by suicide on JMU’s campus, one a student and the other not.

Sablich said she feels JMU’s talked about mental health more and has bolstered the Counseling Center, but, she said, “I feel like that’s kind of the extent.” Kreisman said seeing Alger speak shows JMU is prioritizing mental health in its upper administration. She said since her freshman year, she feels like JMU’s made progress regarding mental health because she’s more aware of the opportunities now.

And last year amid the suicides at JMU, Coleman said, “We really saw the effects of not talking about mental health, and kind of just using, I guess, stickers as a way to cover up the problem.”

But now, Coleman said, more tangible work is happening at JMU. She said she knew the walk would raise a lot of money and she knew people would sign up.

That was just the tip of the iceberg.

Being in person, where the sun shined and her peers unveiled stories of loss with comfort surrounding them in every direction: That’s what struck Coleman the most.

“It’s a lot different seeing everybody in one place because we lost a community during the pandemic here at JMU, and I watched it crumble for, like, two years,” Coleman said. “We’re just starting to build it up and build it up the right way.”