NATCHEZ — Approximately 100 people gathered at Duncan Park Saturday to memorialize loved ones and send a message to anyone considering suicide that things don’t have to end that way.

For the second year, Natchez played host to an Out of the Dark walk, a suicide prevention awareness event.

During the walk, survivors and volunteers made their way around the park’s walking track, holding pictures of loved ones now gone and posters enumerating the signs someone may be considering suicide.

One of the participants who spoke at the event was Jan Lipscomb, whose son Todd died two years ago.

The reason her family was there was to provide support for other families and help prevent further tragedies by raising awareness, she said.

“I could have been mad at Todd, but I am not because I know something was wrong,” she said.

“I still love him.”

During the memorial portion of the events, survivors who lost a parent, child, grandparent, sibling, spouse or friend to suicide filed one by one onto the ball field and then simultaneously released colored balloons into the air.

“Some of them wrote notes on their balloons to the loved ones they lost,” organizer Erin Frith said. “It’s a symbolic thing.”

Frith started the event last year after losing her father to suicide, and was able to do so with the help of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

The funds raised by the event have in the past have been used to buy material for distribution in local schools, including the film, “More Than Sad,” which Frith said is for teens about teens.

Frith also said that, when she finishes the self-study program, she would like to start a suicide survivors group in the area.

One thing that Frith said impressed her about this year’s event was the number of those who had not been directly affected by suicide present.

“There are quite a few volunteers who haven’t lost anybody,” she said. “That’s what we want, people who are just willing to listen, to help.”

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention says that warning signs of suicide include:

4Signs of serious depression, such as pessimism, hopelessness, desperation, anxiety, withdrawal, unrelenting low mood and sleep problems.

4Increased use of alcohol or other drugs.

4Taking of unnecessary risks or impulsiveness.

4Threats of suicide.

4Making plans by giving away prized possessions and purchasing a means of killing oneself, such as a firearm or poisons.

4Unexpected rage or anger.

For more information, visit www.afsp.org.