Yorktown Community Unites for Mental Health

Gabrielle Bilik from Yorktown News wrote a beautiful article about Save A Life, which was held on Sunday, April 3, 2016:

A few months after the death of her brother, Michelle Gilbert and her father participated in one of Yorktown’s Alliance for Safe Kids (ASK) Save-A-Life Day events as counselors in a suicide prevention workshop. The workshop included a video, which Gilbert admitted was difficult for her to watch and almost caused her to go home. She is glad today that she didn’t.

“After we watched the video I worked one-on-one with some different students and helped them figure out how to help a friend who might be in trouble having suicidal ideations and how to communicate with them and get them help,” she remembered.

About a week after the event, Gilbert received a call from a school representative who said one of the students she worked with was able to assist a friend with the techniques she had learned in the workshop.

“Just helping one person makes this whole event worth it,” she said. “And I’m sure it helps a lot more than just one person.”

ASK created Save-A-Life Day six years ago to educate high school students and parents about mental health and crisis awareness. This year’s event was held at Lakeland High School on Sunday, April 3.

The event included 16 interactive workshops, 33 exhibits and two keynote speakers; one of whom survived a suicide attempt jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. Five high schools were represented at the event: Lakeland, Mahopac, Somers, Walter Panas and Yorktown. A Taste of Yorktown was provided by area restaurants that donated trays of food for the last hour of the event…

View the full article.