Jones Beach hosts Out of the Darkness Walk for mental health

Posted

Thousands of Long Islanders are expected to gather at Jones Beach on Oct. 27 for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s annual Out of the Darkness Community Walk — a growing event raising awareness and reducing the stigma around mental health, while supporting survivors of suicide loss.

 

The foundation, with chapters in all 50 states, organizes more than 400 walks in September and October and holds the international survivor of suicide loss day every November to increase awareness.

For the Long Island chapter, the Jones Beach walk has grown throughout the last decade, expecting more than 3,000 participants for this year’s event. The walk is also one of the top three fundraisers held by the foundation, which hopes to raise a minimum of $575,000 this year. As the Herald went to press, the event has so far raised over $377,000.

“Half of what we raise stays right here on Long Island, and we are able to use that money to give free educational mental health awareness and suicide prevention programs in community groups, in schools (and) in corporations,” Ann Morrison-Pacella, the Long Island chapter’s executive director, said. “It also allows us to fund the initiatives that we do for suicide loss survivors.”

The remaining half goes toward national services, including research grants, development of new programs and advocacy efforts across the country, according to Morrison-Pacella.

The Long Island walk first took place in Westbury Gardens in 2007, which could not handle the large number of participants, so the event was brought to Jones Beach a few years later, with its access to ample parking.

The foundation’s message focuses primarily on the importance of mental health, while attempting to remove the stigma surrounding it.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 50 percent of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14, and 75 percent by age 24. Each year, one in five U.S. adults experience mental illness, and one in 20 experience serious mental illness. Those suffering from mental illness are not alone, which is another message the foundation wants to stress.

“We’ve seen a lot more people attending (the walk) because they are either struggling themselves or they are supporting someone who is, so to me that is where the hope is,” Morrison-Pacella said. “We want people to come to the walk and know that they are not alone.”

Hope is another feeling Morrison-Pacella said she wants to promote with the Long Island Out of the Darkness walk. People who lost a friend or loved one to suicide may have lost hope in the battle against mental health, but the walk’s participants are there to make connections and honor them.

“I have many near and dear to my heart with a history of depression and mental illness, so this walk and this community mean the world to me,” Alyssa Arndt, a Long Island chapter volunteer who helped plan the Oct. 27 walk, said.

Arndt, a Seaford resident and art teacher, lost her great uncle and a close high school friend to suicide. She said that both suicides left her feeling helpless, heartbroken, shocked and saddened, but joining the walk’s Team Tornado nine years ago with her husband, Jeremy, has helped her cope.

Her husband, who lost his older cousin to suicide, has been an active participant in the walk for more than a decade, using the event to raise awareness of mental health and suicide.

“The stigma behind mental health has shifted from something taboo to something mainstream,” he said. “The more we, as a society, can openly have conversations about mental health and advocate for the proper resources and support, (the more) we will continue to save lives.”

According to the foundation, suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the U.S., with the use of firearms accounting for about 55 percent of all suicide deaths. In 2022, suicide rates were highest among people over 85 years old, with the number growing exponentially in that age group since 2019. However, the rates for people between 15 and 24 have declined from 15.15 to 13.62 suicides per 100,000 individuals in that same time frame.

The increased awareness of mental health and suicide among young adults is believed to be the reason for the lower suicide rate for that age group. Younger generations also use social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok to help remove the stigma around mental health. In addition, college students attend these walks all across the country, creating teams to raise money.

“An event like this is important because we are trying to change the way people think about mental health,” Morrison-Pacella said. “We want people to understand that our mental health is just as important as our physical health.”