Contact: Jack Bailey
(304) 766-4109
Jbaile19@wvstateu.edu
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
INSTITUTE, W.Va. – West Virginia State University’s (WVSU) Counseling and Wellness Services, Department of Health and Human Performance, and Department of Nursing are sponsoring a Health Expo and Out of the Darkness Walk Suicide Prevention Walk on Thursday, April 25.
The Health Expo is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. inside the James C. Wilson University Union. The Out of the Darkness Walk is at 12:30 p.m. outside the Union.
The expo will consist of health presentations, fitness testing, mental health screenings, Naloxone training, and more than 30 community agencies and wellness information tables. Some organizations represented at the expo include the First Choice Services, American Lung Association, United Way of Central West Virginia, YWCA RESOLVE, and Mountain Care Network, FamilyCare Health Centers. The expo is free and open to the public.
The Out of the Darkness Walk is a partnership with WVSU Counseling and Wellness Services and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). Anyone can register to walk as an individual or with a team. The walks are the AFSP’s signature student fundraising series, designed to engage youth and young adults in the fight to prevent suicide. Participants can walk to support a friend, a loved one, or yourself. The AFSP says depression, bipolar, anxiety disorder, and other mental health conditions will affect 1 in 4 people and too often the illnesses go untreated. In the United States alone, someone attempts suicide every minute.
Participants may walk as long as their time permits. To register for the walk or make a donation, go to afsp.org/wvsu.
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West Virginia State University is a public, land-grant, historically black university, which has evolved into a fully accessible, racially integrated, and multi-generational institution, located in Institute, W.Va. As a “living laboratory of human relations,” the university is a community of students, staff, and faculty committed to academic growth, service, and preservation of the racial and cultural diversity of the institution. Its mission is to meet the higher education and economic development needs of the state and region through innovative teaching and applied research.