Got an Old Backpack?

Donate it to Active Minds, Inc. and Help Us Send Silence Packing!

Here is a plug for a new campaign Active Minds is running, to represent the incidence and impact of college student suicide. Every backpack we collect will represent a college student who has died by suicide in the past year. Unfortunately, many of us know at least one such tragedy - please donate in honor of anyone you know, or all who you hope never get to that stage.

_____

Suicide claims the life of over 1,100 college students each year*, and the impact of each one of those deaths touches us all. Active Minds, Inc., the only national organization dedicated to utilizing the student voice to raise mental health awareness on the college campus, is embarking on an aggressive campaign to promote a dialogue about mental health issues on campus and combat the incidence of student suicide. By empowering students and the student voice in mental health awareness, we envision one day when mental health issues are widely discussed, and the number of these tragic deaths is reduced to 0.

To demonstrate the crisis of college student suicide, we are looking to collect 1,100 backpacks/messenger bags/book bags this fall to be publicly displayed to represent all of those promising lives lost each year. If you have a plain backpack that you would like to contribute to this campaign, please send it to**:

Send Silence Packing
Active Minds, Inc.
1875 Connecticut Ave, NW Suite 418
Washington, DC 20009

If you would like to donate a backpack in memory or in honor of a loved one and would like to attach a name/story/picture/etc. to the bag, please laminate your message and attach it securely to the outside of the bag. Please do not put your message inside the bag, as it will not be seen. If you don’t have a backpack but would like to contribute to the Campaign and the work of Active Minds, please send donations to Active Minds, Inc. at the address above, or donate online.

The first presentation of the Send Silence Packing Campaign will be on Friday, October 26, 2007 on the National Mall in Washington, DC. A special gathering with guest speaker Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) will occur between 12:30-2pm at 13th and Jefferson Streets, NW, as part of the Fourth National Mental Health on Campus Conference.

**Please note – due to the nature of this exhibit, your backpack will not be returned to you. However, if you include your email address in your correspondence, we will be sure to keep you informed of where and when the backpacks will be displayed.

*National Mental Health Association & The Jed Foundation. (2002). Safeguarding your students against suicide: Expanding the safety network. Alexandria, VA.

Click here for PDF of this document