If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available. Appleseed Community Mental Health Center’s 24-Hour Crisis Hotline is here for exactly these moments — you don’t have to wait for a crisis to reach out and you don’t have to go through it alone.
Appleseed’s 24-Hour Crisis Hotline: (419)-289-6111
ASHLAND — Nearly 200 people came together Sunday for a walk under a beautiful sky and surrounded by community.
Their purpose for meeting was simple, but urgent — to raise awareness about suicide, reduce the stigma that so often keeps people from asking for help and to honor those our community has lost.
The numbers behind this work are sobering.
Suicide is the second leading cause of death for people ages 10 to 34, and each year, an estimated 50 million Americans consider suicide.
Behind every one of those numbers is a person, a family and a community left to carry the weight of what happened — and often, what wasn’t said in time.
That’s why gatherings like this one matter. They create space for grief and hope to sit side-by-side and they remind everyone present that help is real and it’s close by.
The event opened with introductions from Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashland County Chair Andrew Kinney and Vice Chair Chad Brown, followed by a reading of the proclamation from Ashland County Commissioner Mike Welch, formally recognizing the walk’s purpose.
Midway through the walk, participants paused at the Silent Watch, founded by Tim Chandler, a moment dedicated to veteran suicide awareness — a quiet acknowledgment of the weight so many veterans carry, often without others realizing it.
Keynote speaker Hope Alcantar offered a deeply personal reflection on losing her daughter to suicide. She described her daughter’s hopelessness in an image that stayed with everyone present: like being in a smoke-filled room, where the exit — help — might be right beside you, but you simply cannot see it.
It was a heartfelt reminder of how invisible that kind of pain can be, even to those closest to someone who is struggling.
Pam Lemaster, who works with Appleseed Community Mental Health Center and facilitates their Suicide Griever’s Group, read the names of community members lost to suicide — a moment of remembrance that honored each person as more than a statistic.
Appleseed Executive Director Jerry Strausbaugh closed the event with remarks centered on mental health, hope and the strength of community — a fitting note to end on as the day itself was proof of what community can offer.
The event also featured a number of wonderful vendor booths and none of it would have been possible without the volunteers who gave their time, including a special thank-you to the Ashland University Wellness Team.