Start Day One | Thinking Out Loud [Live]

Last weekend we held our first official fundraiser for Start Day One. The fundraiser was to start promoting our "Mental Break" campaign for kids. What we are wanting to do is to get out to the local schools, middle and high schools in the area and have an assembly where we can talk to kids about our approach to mental health and suicide.

Kids today have a lot of pressure on them, and they all need that mental break! Lord knows I need to take a 10-minute break every day to clear my head and focus on what I need to do and how I am going to handle certain things. Putting things into the right perspective and taking a deep breath and then conquering it all! 

The creation of our suicide prevention foundation was influenced by our inspirational apparel brand because of our mission to inspire and motivate people to live life and take risks. We keep the brand integrated because of the importance of making a decision.

We never really mentioned suicide to customers since we didn't want to exploit my experience with the loss of my brother from suicide. But then I realized that my conversations with people about it helps people.

Most suicide prevention organizations have a reactive approach and wait for you to have suicidal tendencies. After speaking to hundreds of people, we believe that it's more effective to have a proactive approach by speaking to people before they even come close to having suicidal tendencies.