World Suicide Prevention Day 2019

World Suicide Prevention Day, September 10, 2019, our founders spent the day in downtown Toms River speaking with the kids from Toms River High School South. We were contacted by Ocean Partnership for Children, a State-run organization that helps kids in need.

They wanted to do something for the kids of the town and needed some help planning and putting an event together. After a long meeting with a room full of people, social workers and experts, Dare to Care was born!

We arrived early in the morning and set up a table with information and some giveaways for the kids that came by to talk to us. Ocean Partnership for Children, the YMCA, and even behavioral health facilities were on the premises to talk to the kids as well. We had them interacting, telling us their stories of depression and dealing with the aftermath of suicide, even their own thoughts of suicide.

Every lunch period hundreds of kids walked through and stopped to talk to us. There were a few kids that stayed almost their entire lunch period talking with us, crying and telling us how our proactive approach to suicide totally changed their perspective and that they would never forget the things that we said to them that day.

We feel as though we are the forefront, the beginning force that helps change a kid's perspective. Anyone's perspective that is! If we can't fix or change a child's perspective then we believe that we have a responsibility to pass them off to professionals and experts in this field.

We like to think that we can change their minds ahead of time so that they never get that far. We always say if we can make a difference in just one child's life, or any person's life for that matter, our mission is successful and that's why we will continue to do what we do. We need to make a difference in these people's lives and that's what we are doing, one life at a time.