The Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce would like to welcome guest blogger, Christina Crist, V.P. /Executive Director/Survivor of Team of Mercy, Inc.
Christina is using this opportunity to tell Chamber members more about Team of Mercy and her personal story.
Team of Mercy offers assistance to individuals that have lost a loved one to Suicide. We as an organization believe that when we open the lines of communication and talk about Suicide and Mental Health we can become a healthier community. We focus on Suicide Awareness and Education with these following services, Grief Support, Suicide Awareness programs/events, Support groups, Youth Mental Health First Aide workshops, Counseling/ therapy services and Bio-hazard scene clean-up for those in the Wabash Valley. We are working on a couple new services which include a Youth support group for ages 12-17 and Adult Mental Health First Aide workshops.
I have a great passion for this since I myself lost my beautiful 15 year old daughter Hannah Gean Crist to suicide, Sept 13th 2013. I had no idea that my daughter was suffering in this way. The shock that her death had on our family and community was at times unreal feeling. I first hand know these feelings and got to see our youth struggle with her death hear all the questions our community had surrounding her cause of death. I have been involved with Team of Mercy from the beginning. I knew I needed be around others that where or had gone through the same. From there I have used my pain and experience to reach out and help take stigma away from Suicide and Mental Health.
You may get involved as a volunteer at our annual Surviving the Color Run/Walk that we have in May each year. You may make donation so we can continue to help those in need. WE ask for prayers for all of those effected by Suicide, this is not something that we have asked for it can be a very painful loss to go through. We have a Facebook page, teamofmercy.com is our website and you may email me at teamofmercy@gamil.com if there any questions. Our annual fundraiser is May 19th, 2018. We will be looking for sponsors for this event.
I believe that it takes our whole community to help. Studies show that Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death in 12-34 years old and the 3rd leading cause of death in 10-14 year old children. This is heart breaking. Will you help us to help others seek help before it is to late and they are one of these numbers.
