Suicide Prevention Awareness

September was deemed suicide awareness month, September 10 being World Suicide Prevention Day. In light of that, Unity organized a display of backpacks featuring real stories of teen suicides along with posters with hotlines and help.

At lunch, students were seen reading the stories that seemed to make an impact across campus. They were also found reading the purple posters hung along the quad wall– purple coming from the suicide awareness ribbon.

Along with the backpacks, the semicolon project was highlighted. A large poster was featured that had the quote: “Where the author could’ve ended the sentence but decided to keep going. The author is you and the sentence is your life.”

Each backpack not only had the stories of each teenager, but also symbolized the mass reality that teen suicide has become. From behind, the backpacks even seemed to look like tombstones, intentionally or not. Left without an explanation, the backpacks remained during both lunches and were later gone by the end of the day.