Unity’s upcoming shoe drive is a movement to help bring awareness to the to topic of suicide. Starting this week, Unity is going to be accepting donated shoes in room F119. The last day to donate is Friday September 7, 2018.

The theme is “Walk A Day in My Shoes”. Unity members say that the drive will take place in the quad. They plan to display all of the donated shoes around the area as an act of symbolism. The amount of shoes are meant to represent the amount of people that have taken their lives.

In an interview with Unity member, Chelsea Luong, she talks about the event and says that the drive is used to help talk about suicide. She feels that suicide is a topic that no one wants to talk about because of the weight it holds. Often times the topic drives people away because they don’t like the negative connotation that goes along with it. This could be because people have been personally impacted by suicide, or because they don’t want to acknowledge it. It’s “out of sight out of mind.” In reality, suicide and depression are very important topics that need to be talked about.

Luong continued to say that the goal Unity hopes to achieve is to show that people are not alone. Unity wants students on campus to know that they always have someone to talk to and that not all hope is lost. Because when we walk a day in someone else’s shoes, we begin to sympathize and bond with other people who are going through difficult circumstances.

Eastvale resident, Kevin White, also gave his personal standpoint on the topic. He has been personally affected by suicide when his brother, Randall White, took his life back in his twenties. Mr. White says that his brother was always cracking jokes, but he was quiet and, “those are the ones you have to look out for.” He says that his brother owed a lot of people a lot of money and was involved in drugs and alcohol. Overtime, they took over his life. Mr. White, now 59, says that he still has the clothes that his brother wore when he was buried, in his closet. Whenever he cleans, he likes to take the clothes out of the bag they stay in, and breathe in the scent of his best friend, his brother. When asked about suicide awareness, Mr. White, says, “I think it’s awesome, the more the better. More schools need to key in on that. But the problem is, no one thinks about it.”

That is Unity’s ultimate goal. To shine a light on an important topic in order to help those in need. Because just by talking about it, we could help save a life.