To remember, to heal, to find support; participants of the Out of the Darkness Walk attended for different reasons. But they all came together to walk in this annual event on April 9 at Arizona State University aimed to raise awareness and provide suicide prevention education.
“The walk is sponsored by the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention (AFSP),” says Khali Titsch, senior psychology major and Psychology Engagement Team (PET) president. “We’ve been raising and collecting money for AFSP.”
The walk raised a total of $14,412 for the organization. The money will be used to create educational and mental health awareness programs.
Leading up to the walk, PET hosted a Mental Health Awareness Week that provided ASU students with on-campus opportunities to learn about mental health through tabling events, panels and activities like yoga.
“This year’s the biggest year for Mental Health Awareness Week,” Titsch says. “We came up with the idea last year and really launched it this year.”
PET aimed to get more on-campus students involved through the week-long activities since the topic is often associated with negativity. The organization ended specifically with The Out of the Darkness Walk as a way to end the week, and the semester, on a positive note.
“We felt that this was the perfect event to end with because it’s more of a celebration and creates a positive light around mental heath where as it’s usually associated with negative things,” Titsch says.
Liam O’Neil, a junior biological sciences major and anthropology minor, is the president of Ask.Listen.Save, a suicide prevention club. With PET, he helped organize the walk this year.
“We’re promoting for people to attend this walk to raise awareness and funds for suicide prevention research as well as education programs,” O’Neil says.
O’Neil aimed to set up the walk in a way that would allow people to recognize those who have been lost due to suicide and those that have been affected by suicide.
“Suicide is a very stigmatized term and what we’re doing is allowing people to express themselves and open up about a very touchy, sensitive subject such as suicide,” O’Neil says.
Kelsey Oney sits on the board for the AFSP Arizona and assisted with connecting clubs with community organizations.
“We meet with ASU students every Thursday, here on campus at the MU and helped them as they put on this event,” Oney says.
AFSP acted as a representative for all the resources present and was there for any on-hand help the student organizations might have needed.
“A campus walk is an opportunity for the students to take the message behind AFSP and promote it out to their school and families,” Oney says. “We’re here to guide the students along the way on how to hold a successful walk and what that means to the community.”
Oney is familiar with suicide loss, as she lost her father over eight years ago. She didn’t become involved in Mental Health Awareness Week until she became involved in AFSP and saw the positive effects of joining a community.
“I had gone off to college and come back before I got involved in AFSP to learn about mental health advocacy,” Oney says. “Finding an entire community of people that understood my loss meant a whole lot to me.”
After getting the opportunity to work with ASU’s organization, Oney has praised the amount of resources the university has.
“There are so many different opportunities here at ASU to get involved with... The university as a whole is really stepping up its game every year,” Oney says. “It’s just becoming more and more evident that the stigma is breaking, that they’re talking about it and that they’re going to be at the forefront of talking about it.”
