Occupational therapy students from Western Michigan University’s Grand Rapids location are taking action against teen suicide. They’re holding a fundraising event to support the Mental Health Foundation of West Michigan's teen suicide prevention program.
“So, it all started with a student in 2010 that had a friend who had committed suicide in high school. And so she had partnered with the mental health foundation prior to getting into the OT program and that’s when we started the event and starting partnering with them.”
Lindsey Fuller is the PR coordinator for the student occupational therapy association for Western Michigan University’s Grand Rapids location. She says they want to call attention and raise awareness for suicide prevention among teens.
“50 percent of all mental health illnesses begin by the age of 15 and 75 percent by the age of 24. It’s definitely needed in our community and it’s a big thing on the rise and it’s a great time for us to address it.”
To address it, these occupational therapy college students from WMU are holding a fundraising event in conjunction with Dr. Grin’s Comedy Club. It is to support the Mental Health Foundation of West Michigan’s teen suicide prevention program. Lindsey says they’ve been helping the foundation since 2010.
“And we decided to go a different route this year, we didn’t want to do the same thing that all the other cohorts have done; we thought a great time would be to get everybody out, get them laughing and raise awareness. –so the tickets are 10 dollars and half of the ticket sales goes to the mental health foundation directly.”
The show again is at Dr. Grins on Thursday, October 12th. Show time is 8pm. Make sure you go the Dr. Grin website and put in group code, SOTA-Michigan health foundation comedy night.
