Speaker to discuss suicide prevention
Abbi Williams took her passion for running and turned her 18th birthday into a GoFundMe campaign.
Williams’ goal was to raise mental health and suicide awareness and donate the money raised to the Waupaca County Suicide Prevention Coalition (WCSPC). S
She donated $4,211 to help with the Coalition’s mission.
Williams’ desire to raise mental health and suicide awareness prompted the WCSPC to focus on area teens.
In April, plans began for the Creating Hope Leadership Summit.
WCSPC contacted Jeff Yalden, a nationally known mental health awareness and suicide prevention speaker.
His mission is to prevent suicide, improve community mental health, and shatter the stigma of mental illness by initiating a positive movement to speak up and reach out.
Summit planned in Manawa
On Wednesday, Sept. 29, Yalden will speak with teams of teens and youth from school districts around Waupaca County on the importance of peer-to-peer support.
His message is, “It’s OK to not be OK. But, it’s also OK to ask for help.”
The Creating Hope Leadership Summit aims to have Yalden motivate, inspire, guide, and enrich the school district’s current mental health programs.
The Manawa Masonic Center donated its facility for the five-hour Summit.
In addition to the Creating Hope Leadership Summit, Yalden will speak to the Waupaca School District staff about mental health and suicide awareness prevention.
His presentation is due to Williams’ GoFundMe Campaign and the Waupaca girls soccer team “Kicking the Stigma” of Mental Health T-shirt campaign in spring.
The Waupaca Girls soccer team, Fox Valley Lutheran, and Wrightstown donated proceeds from the T-shirt campaign to the Waupaca County Suicide Coalition and NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Yalden will also offer a free community talk, “Silence the Stigma: Be Proud of You” on Wednesday, Sept. 29, at the Waupaca Middle School auditorium.
The evening will feature of a resource fair at 6 p.m. Yalden will speak at 6:30 p.m. A question-and-answer session will follow his talk.
The talk is appropriate for sixth grade and older.
For more information, visit www.waupaca-saves.org or WCSPC’s Facebook page.