In the center of Drake Stadium, Amy Davis delivered a speech to a crowd of Drake students, faculty, staff and Des Moines community members. Davis talked about losing her mother to suicide and how that forever changed her life. As the crowd walked around Drake Stadium’s track, Davis explained how she went back to school to get her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work after her mother died and now helps others who have also experienced a loss due to suicide.
“I knew I needed to do something with the pain that I was feeling,” Davis said. “[I am] able to give back and to share my experience, to help inspire other people and give people hope that they can go on to live a full and happy life even though they have experienced a loss due to suicide.”
Davis’ speech was part of the third annual Suicide Awareness Walk at Drake University, which the Drake Counseling Center and Drake’s chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness on Campus organized. The event highlighted many speakers and resources as participants walked around Drake Stadium’s blue track.
Davis said she agreed to speak because the event helped educate people and spread the word about suicide prevention. She said events like this one provide a community of support, which can be healing in itself.
“The more that we can talk about our struggles, how we can get through them and the community that we have and bring together when we have a loss, the more healing that can be done,” Davis said. “I just want people to know they’re not alone; there is support, and people care.”
This is the first year that NAMI on Campus was able to help put on Drake’s Suicide Awareness Walk after gaining its registered student organization status last spring. Before NAMI on Campus, Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology, helped host the event.
Kate Hagemeier, president of NAMI on Campus, said the organization’s creation allowed it to expand the walk this year. In years past, participants would walk around the Bulldog Mile during the Suicide Awareness Walk. This year, the event was more than just a walk; it included resources, speakers, lawn games and food. Hagemeier said that she was very impressed with the turnout this year.
“I don’t have any numbers, but looking at it, this is incredible,” Hagemeier said. “This is a large portion of the University. We have different sports teams, sororities and clubs here. It is exciting to see everyone from different parts of the campus come together to support a good cause.”
Wearing colorful beaded necklaces signifying the different reasons they attended the event and donning pom-poms, Drake’s cheer team walked under the beating sun with smiles on their faces. Alex Shroads, a junior on the cheer team, said the team is dedicated to attending the event as a group because the team is like a family, and they want to be that for everybody else, too.
Shroads said that everyone had been impacted by suicide in some manner and the neckless were a great physical representation of that. Whether somebody has lost a friend of family member to suicide or is just an advocate, Shroads said that it is important to attend events like these.
“I think anything you can do to make people feel like they have a community, a voice and support is a really big deal. Even just seeing everybody out here together is really impactful.”
