The 10th Annual Suicide Awareness Banquet, "Celebrating Ten Years of
Hope" took place this evening at Colburn United Methodist Church.
Keynote
speakers were Sandra Harstine and Russ Crabtree. Both were instrumental
in developing the regions five suicide prevention coalitions.
"I'm
going to be talking a little bit about the epidemic of suicide and how
serious this is in our country," said Crabtree, Director of 'Best
Minds'. "It's kind of an unrecognized problem still in many part of our
society."
Ten percent of American adults suffer from depression
and more than thirty-eight-thousand people complete suicide each year.
Many of the people represented by these statistics were part of a church
community. The focus of discussion at this year's banquet was ways
churches can address suicide.
"I'm going to be talking
specifically about faith communities and what I do with faith
communities, I generally spend a day with pastors and leaders and help
them look at the myths for example in the Bible, kind of the ideas that
people have about what's in the bible about suicide. If you can say the
word suicide in a sentence, you can save a life," said Crabtree. The
title of his message was "Saving Jonah and Other People of Faith".
There
were about 120 attendees. The banquet was hosted by suicide prevention
coalitions represented in Coshocton, Gurnsey, Morgan, Muskingum and
Perry counties.
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