The Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce would like to welcome guest blogger, Team of Mercy Executive Director, Christina Crist. As September is National Suicide Prevention & Awareness Month, Crist was asked to provide more information about Team of Mercy and the services that are provided to the community.
September is Suicide Awareness Month. What would you like for people to know about the national campaign?
Suicide Awareness Month is a time for us to educate the community on how much suicide is affecting the Wabash Valley. Suicide rate are at. We are estimating that suicide will be at an all-time high by the end the year. We have assisted with more suicidal individuals in the last three months then ever before. We have helped over 50 individuals get the help they needed. We have assisted with over 20 suicides since the start of COVID in the Wabash Valley. We want our community to know they are not alone in their struggles. We may not have all the answers, but our community is rich in resources and we will do everything we can to help an individual to
where they need to be by working with other agencies!
What programming is offered right now by Team of Mercy that the community could tap into if needed?
We are offering weekly Zoom Grief Support Groups, in person support group, counseling services, bio-hazard scene clean-up and working on a new Virtual Suicide Awareness and Prevention Program.
Team of Mercy’s annual Surviving the Color Run was hosted recently. How did the event go, especially in the wake of COVID-19?
Our 7th Annual Surviving the Color was a huge success. Team of Mercy measures success on many different levels. First, we where able to hold our event. Yes, we had to push it back a month, but we still had it! Our numbers where down but we still had 475 participants. In 2019 we had 700 participants so to have this many in the middle of so much uncertainty. We feel this is was a huge blessing. Our goal to reach fundraising wise was, $50,000. Now, we did not reach that goal this year due to the COVID but overall, we still raised nearly $30,000 at our event. We also had several vendors that came to be of service to our community, 15 to be exact. Our sponsors where amazing and understanding. To have over 500 individuals be able to participate in our biggest annual fundraiser is such a blessing. We realize many have not been so fortunate as us and we are doing everything we can as an organization to help them out. We know that it will take our entire community working together.
