by Rachel Sterling|staff writer

The Future Business Leaders of America will lead this campus’ first Suicide Prevention Rally the last weekend in January. Students will remember that their own campus has been touched by suicide as recent as this year.  
The funds made at the rally will go towards the National Association for Suicide Prevention (NASP) in hopes that they can help kids realize that they have other options and there are people willing to help.

“They can go to the STAN counselor, they can call the hotline, they can reach out to a friend, they can reach out to a teacher, they can reach out to any administrator,” Career and Technology teacher Carrie Turner-Gray said.

The NASP also has many resources to go to, most of which are open for teens and adults.

“They have counseling, they will go out to schools and tell the counselors what to look for in signs of suicidal thoughts,they have a website that offers many different things. They also work with survivors to help them get back on track emotionally, and they also work with the family that has survived what’s happened and provide resources for them so it will help them kind of understand.” said Turner-Gray.

”The main goal is to raise money for the National Association for Suicide Prevention. We’ve been working with them this entire year to raise awareness through activities. We participated in their walk at the beginning of the year, we also have students who are sitting on the team development committee for coming up with different resources for teens and what would work and what wouldn’t,” Turner-Gray said.

The FBLA is also participating in another walk with the NASP to raise money for another project.“We also want to do another walk to try to raise money to staff another hotline that’s geared towards only teens.The hotline they have now is geared towards everybody, but teens have a different outlook than an adult would in that situation. So, that’s what we’re trying to do,” Turner-Gray said.

The committee is also working to have other clubs and organizations involved in this event as well. Taking place on the Johnson football field Saturday January 30, the event will be from 10am to 1pm.

“Right now the committee is reaching out to their friends and officers in other clubs. They’re also going to every sponsor to see if they want to get involved. They talked to the band director and the drum line will be playing. And then we’ve talked to members of the community to get the Johnson community involved too,” Turner-Gray said.