Chandler-Gilbert Community College held its second annual Suicide Prevention Walk
The second annual Suicide Prevention Walk at Chandler-Gilbert Community College to bring awareness to the crisis and gave community members resources to help those in need.
Attendees were walked around the CGCC Pecos campus on the morning of November 14 to six stations, including facts and statistics, assumptions and stigma, mental health, bullying and victimization, social media, and resources. Each station had a three-fold poster board made and presented by students from the Psychology Department.
Student Body President Skylar Balwin organized the event again after she helped assist in last year’s event, an effort she believes is essential to raise awareness.
“My goal is to really make it relevant, make people understand that this is a crisis happening, not only in our community, our state, but rather the nation,” Baldwin said. “I just want to bring awareness, reduce the stigma, and just create a supportive environment for individuals to seek help without fear of judgment,” she added.
Baldwin’s goal was shared by many of the attendees and hit close to home for multiple of the people who took part in the walk. Cody Crosland, her vice president, shared that he has a partner who is struggling with self-harm and self-doubt, and he wanted to show that they, and many others, have resources out there to help.
Many people also joined in during the walk after hearing the speeches and asking questions, turning 50 community members into about 70.
Skylar Baldwin also reached out to Mayor Hartke of Chandler and Mayor Peterson of Gilbert to invite them to the student-led walk, and both said yes. Peterson explained that she felt it was important for her to be there because it is a topic that is not discussed enough.
“Gilbert has a severe issue with suicides. We had a Friday maybe about three weeks ago that three suicides occurred in the town of Gilbert, and you just don’t hear about them. And I think that’s the biggest problem. We need to talk about it more,” Peterson said.
Paula McCall, founder and president of the Semicolon Society, was also in attendance at the walk. She was the featured speaker at the end of the event for the second year in a row.
The Semicolon Society is an Arizona non profit organization that strives to support suicide prevention and help those in need through free mental health education to the community, according to their website.
The Semicolon Society president explained that the walk truly brings awareness to the topic at hand and that she believes that awareness is the key to prevention.
“One of the biggest protective pieces of suicide is having conversations about mental health and suicide and recognizing if someone is struggling, and knowing what to do and how to have that conversation, if someone is struggling or if we’re struggling, what to do,” she said.
She decided to use her experiences and the questions she was asked last year to strengthen her speech and add in more personal details about her struggle and experience with suicidal thoughts.
McCall wanted to connect with students so that they, too, could feel empowered to reach out to the right people if they were ever in need, and for them to know they are not alone.
“It’s normal to feel different things and to feel off balance sometimes. It’s absolutely normal,” McCall said in her speech. “What we need to do is instead of masking it, instead of hiding it, and saying ‘I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.’ I recognize it. I’m not fine today,” she stated.
The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline can be reached by calling or texting 988 for free and confidential support for people in crisis or emotional stress, according to the sixth and final resource station at the walk.
