Walk aims to promote hope and healing

SANDPOINT — This Sunday will mark the fourth annual Walk for H.O.P.E. event, with the goal of letting each individual know that they are important, that life matters and it doesn’t have to end with suicide.

“September is Suicide Awareness Month, so it is a great reason to kick this off and start the month off right, and also to show our kids the support that they need to go back to school,” said Walk for H.O.P.E. founder Jennifer Wyman.

Wyman lost her daughter, 14-year-old Madison Wyman, to suicide in November 2015. Ten months later, the first Walk for H.O.P.E. was organized in Sandpoint by Wyman, along with family, friends and sponsors to promote hope and healing in the community. H.O.P.E. is an acronym for “Hold On Pain Ends.”

The nonprofit was started as a fundraiser to bring guest speakers into the local schools and functions that promote suicide awareness, in addition to promoting suicide awareness in the community.

“It is also a really good day for our community to be reminded of how beautiful life is, and how many people are here to be supportive ... It’s a day where everybody comes together and you can look around and see how many people care — that there is that much love and generosity in our community,” Wyman said. “I want everybody to feel embraced, and feel warm and welcomed, to just have that positive feeling of life is good and that we can handle this together as a community.”

As a fundraiser, the nonprofit funded its first initiative in the schools two years ago, bringing in Big Mouth Presentations to hold assemblies at Sandpoint High School, Sandpoint Middle School, Lake Pend Oreille High School and Clark Fork High School. Last year, motivational speaker Mike Smith, of Mike Smith Live, was broadcasted all year at SHS via YouTube videos during the morning announcements, with a visit to the school in person in December.

No guest speaker has been selected yet for this year, Wyman said, primarily because with the recent administrative changes at SHS and at the district level, they didn’t want to lock anything in just yet. Nevertheless, the Walk for H.O.P.E. will bring a speaker into the middle and high school this year. Wyman said when they do get things set up, if time allows, they hope to invite some of the other schools as well.

Also, Walk for H.O.P.E. recently partnered with Design for Change Sandpoint with the goal of expanding DFC to all of the local elementary schools. DFC is a world-wide program that gets kids doing various projects to help make the world a better place. The local program started a few years ago with a group of Washington Elementary sixth-graders who took on the project of suicide awareness and prevention after learning there had been five suicides within two years in the community. The program has since evolved to include a number of projects, from food waste reduction and plastic recycling, to fighting poverty and hunger, and racism and discrimination.

“We are focused this year on starting new projects in each elementary school for Design for Change,” Wyman said.

Registration for the Walk for H.O.P.E. is open online at walkforhopesandpoint.org. Registration forms are also available at Selkirk Glass and Cabinets, and Kokanee Coffee, and onsite registration will open at 4 p.m. Sunday at Dog Beach at the north end of the Long Bridge. The walk will begin at 5 p.m. at Dog Beach, from which point walkers will make their way across the bridge and back.

Free hamburgers and hot dogs will be available after the event to promote community connections, Wyman said, and every registered participant receives a T-shirt, bracelet and balloon.

Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com