It’s time once again to sign for the Miss-Lou Out of the Darkness Community Walk! This year the walk will be on Nov. 13 at the Vidalia Riverfront. These walks occur around the country for the purpose of raising money for research into suicide prevention and depression awareness.

Mental illness is just that — an illness. It can strike any person, any family, any social circle. It’s not something anyone should be embarrassed about.

If someone has a problem, they should be able to reach out for help without being embarrassed. Let’s help erase the stigma that is so heavily associated with mental illness.

This will be the third year we have had this walk in our area and we need a lot more help in the planning stages.

Please contact me at your earliest opportunity, by contacting the newspaper, if you can help out in any way. We need help with distributing posters and brochures, getting sponsors ($100 gets their logo on the T-shirt), contacting prospective speakers and musicians, securing food for volunteers and to be sold after walk.

Please help this cause even if you haven’t lost someone to this horrible tragedy.

Those left behind, families and friends, never completely get over something like this.

Let’s do what we can to prevent it from happening even more.

Don’t forget to go online at www.outofthedarkness.org and sign up for the 2010 Miss-Lou Out of the Darkness Community Walk!

Erin Sessions Frith

local event coordinator