Southeast hosting suicide-prevention walk

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's "Out of the Darkness" campus walk at Southeast Missouri State University will begin Saturday at Kent Library.

Check-in and registration are at 9 a.m., and the 3-mile walk begins at 10 a.m. and ends at 1 p.m.

Online registration at afsp.donordrive.com closes at noon Friday. Anyone who would like to participate, however, can register at the walk Saturday from the time check-in begins until the walk starts. Walk donations are accepted until June 30.

The foundation hosts campus, community and overnight walks to raise money for research and education programs. The walks also raise awareness about depression and suicide.

Jasmine Lewis, a senior at Southeast and member of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, organized Southeast's first campus walk this year.

Lewis had seen a flier about a community walk, and later called the foundation to organize a similar event on campus.

"It's good to have something like that on the campus as well as in the community," Lewis said. "But especially on the campus, where suicide is the second-leading cause of death for college students."

Laura Matlock-Hill has organized an annual community Out of the Darkness walk at Cape Girardeau County Park since 2011. This year's community walk is scheduled for Sept. 20.

"I lost my brother Jan. 27, 2011," Matlock-Hill said Wednesday. "A couple months after that is when I got involved with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. I just felt like it was an opportunity for me to do something, to save someone else's life, possibly. And to make people aware of the suicide warning signs."

The foundation's latest data on suicide is taken from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report from 2013. That year, the CDC reported 41,149 suicides, making suicide the 10th-leading cause of death for Americans.

Matlock-Hill said she thinks the key to preventing suicide is awareness.

"That's the main point of these walks, is to let everyone know there is help," she said. "A lot of people live with mental illness, and it's nothing to be ashamed of. We're here for support, whether it's for a survivor of suicide loss or of an attempt, or someone living with mental illness."

klamb@semissourian.com

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