USI’s chapter of To Write Love on Her Arms co-sponsored the first Evansville Out of the Darkness Community Walk on Oct. 8.
Out of the Darkness Community Walks are organized by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to raise funds and awareness for suicide prevention and education.
To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA) is a non-profit whose mission as stated on their website is to “present hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.”
While interning for TWLOHA in Florida in February 2011, sophomore social work major Erin Gillingham participated in an Out of the Darkness Community Walk. While walks were already organized in Indiana, none were planned for the city of Evansville and Gillingham decided to bring the idea to the city.
“I fell in love,” Gillingham said. “The problem was that the walks were all happening way up north.”
Gillingham contacted the Indiana Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) and volunteered to organize the walk at Garvin Park.
One hundred and twenty eight people from around the Evansville area were signed up to walk and more than $4,000 were raised by the end of the event.
“The vision is people going to the walk and seeing that they are not alone and having that encouragement,” Gillingham said.
Lisa Brattain founded the Indiana Chapter of the AFSP and attended the Out of the Darkness Walk. After losing her son to suicide in 2006, Brattain decided that she needed to do something to help herself and others affected by suicide and depression illnesses.
“I didn’t know my son could die from depression, so this became what I could do about that,” Brattain said.
Brattain compares the national suicide rate with the rate of breast cancer deaths, saying about 36,000 people will die from suicide and 40,000 will die from breast cancer each year.
“Forty years ago it wasn’t socially acceptable to say breast and now we have football players wearing pink,” Brattain said. “Suicide and depression are taboo words and we need these words to become part of our vocabulary. This is a formation of a community for suicide and depression. We need to be louder.”
Freshman interactive media design major Spencer Boyle also volunteered at the event and had been interested in TWLOHA even before attending USI.
“I’ve always kind of known about it, but when I found out there was a university chapter (at USI) I figured this would be easier than trying to go up and talk to people about TWLOHA on my own.”