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More than 400 walk for suicide awareness event
The Long Island Crisis Center held its 7th annual suicide awareness walk on the boardwalk at Laurelton Boulevard last Sunday. The walk is the center’s culminating event on Long Island recognizing September as National Suicide Prevention Month.
“There’s a lot of stigma around suicide, and one of the missions for the walk is to de-stigmatize the subject and make the walk a place where family, friends and survivors can talk about it and find comfort,” said Fran Karliner, director of development for the crisis center.
The annual “Let’s Walk, Let’s Talk … Stepping Together to Prevent Suicide” event came on the heels of new data released by the Centers for Disease Control this year indicating that suicide rates continue to increase across the nation. Now in its 44th year, the crisis center is dedicated to increasing suicide awareness, educating everyone about the warning signs of suicide and de-stigmatizing the subject of suicide and spreading the word that “it’s okay to ask for help.”
Karliner said that about 400 people turned out for the walk on Saturday, and she expects the total donations to reach $50,000, though they are still being calculated. Local officials State Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky and County Legislator Denise Ford were in attendance, and Karliner said that Ford has been a sponsor of the walk since its inception.
“She was very instrumental in the beginning to introducing us to Long Beach and having us walk there,” Karliner said.
A major focus of this year’s event was the high rate of suicides among veterans, Karliner said. The keynote speaker was Virginia Cervasio, the mother of a young veteran who took his own life. Veterans commit suicide at a rate of 22 per day, and Long Island has the second highest population of veterans in the country.
Local vetneran groups, including VFW Post 1384 and Team Red White and Blue — a service organization whose mission is to enrich the lives of Americans by connecting them in their community through physical and social activity — also participated in the walk.
Another demographic with a high suicide rate is male baby-boomers, which Karliner said overlaps largely with Vietnam War veterans.
