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RUN4HOPE
My career has involved working with youth at the secondary level in Vancouver. As an educator, I am aware of the many challenges teens face today as they develop into young adults. I also appreciate the devastating impact suicide has on friends and family as I lost a nephew at age 25 to suicide 4 years ago. It is more than apparent to me how important it is to heighten awareness in our communities around this issue. I am committed to helping in any way I can to prevent the youth in our society from feeling alone and offering ways in which they can reach out to get help for their feelings of desperation. After our family lost my nephew, Matthew, I thought that I could help by volunteering to take a position on the Board of the Josh Platzer Society, thereby supporting youth in my local communities. This grassroots society was started in 2000 by the parents of Josh Platzer, a Vancouver student at Point Grey Secondary, who took his life in 1999. Josh’s mother Jude does numerous talks to teens in the lower mainland each year as part of Guidance and Planning 10 courses. She also speaks to many adults who are seeking information or may be in a state of grieving from losing a loved one. The family offers a scholarship to Grade 12 students each year and the society has been able to fund the posters ‘Silence Kills’ found in the halls of schools and in transit buses and shelters throughout the lower mainland and in smaller communities throughout BC.
www.teensuicideprevention.org provides updated information to educate youth and adults. I also joined a run/walk clinic with the goal of running the same Seattle Marathon event as my nephew had done prior to his death. With much trepidation, I ran it in November of 2009. Since then I have completed 5 half-marathons. It was after the Victoria Marathon event in October of 2012 and the tragic loss of Port Coquitlam student, Amanda Todd that I came up with the idea of joining together running, youth, and awareness of this issue. This is when I approached the Vancouver Marathon Society to inquire how a small charity could participate in such a wonderful event. It was then that I heard about the possibility of becoming an Official Charity and the 2013 RUN4HOPE. It is my hope-that the 25 volunteers that we will provide to help out at a water station, the runners who commit to run for our society, and the opportunity to spread awareness of this issue through the network of the Vancouver Marathon & all facets of social media will have a positive effect on bringing this issue forward and prevent the loss of wonderful people who have a lifetime of potential they have yet to realize. When we listen to the flood of media coverage after incidences of suicide there is always reference made to the importance of education. The challenge is to make the education for youth and parents ongoing and accessible when it is needed most. This is why this issue HAS to become more visible. We can do this AND engage youth and adults who often are at a loss of knowing how to help. In supporting a youth-friendly healthy activity like a charity running event everyone can win!
To support my RUN4HOPE go to http://www.teensuicideprevention.org/vancouvermarathon/sample-page/sharee/
