A university senior and his family want to raise awareness of suicide prevention strategies as they compete for a $50,000 grant from the Pepsi Refresh Project, and he needs the Elon community’s help with online voting for the Hold Hope Initiative in memory of his brother.
Online voting for the Hold Hope Initiative remains open through May 31. If you visit the site independent of the link, the project is listed under the “The Stuart H. Slusher Memorial Scholarship Fund.”
The public can vote for the initiative once per day for each email and Facebook account they register with the Pepsi Refresh Project. Pepsi awards up to 10 grants of $50,000 each month, plus other grants of various amounts.
PepsiCo announced the Pepsi Refresh Project late last year and has pledged to spend at least $20 million in 2010 to fund a wide range of community, education and health endeavors voted on by the public.
Ted Slusher, an Elon University finance and economics double major and a wing commander in the Air Force ROTC program, is rallying Elon classmates, friends and families to cast their ballots for the proposed program. He also wants fellow students to know their options for dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts.
Stuart Slusher, a popular athlete and academic standout at Douglas Southall Freeman High School in Henrico, Va., took his own life in May 2009. Stuart was 17.
“Nobody saw it coming or suspected anything,” Ted Slusher said. “He was almost a straight-A student, co-captain of the wrestling team, co-captain of the baseball team, and was one of the most liked people at his high school. His friends often turned to him for help. It shocked everyone in our community.
“In retrospect, we think he suffered from undiagnosed depression and are trying to educate people on the signs we missed and misinterpreted.”
The Hold Hope Initiative would use the $50,000 grant to fund suicide awareness and prevention education in the Henrico County Public Schools in central Virginia. Select teachers and counselors from each school in the county would attend a two-day program, then take what they learn back to their buildings to host training for colleagues. In addition to the program costs, the grant would cover salaries for substitute teachers, as well as community forums to share with parents the warning signs of teen depression.
The Slushers would ideally like to spread the program nationwide if they find success on the local level.
“We need to start talking about depression, to show that it’s OK to talk about and get treatment for,” said Alex Slusher, Ted and Stuart’s mother. “We want people to feel comfortable reaching out and getting help, not hiding it and feeling bad about having those thoughts. Most people have thoughts like this during their lives. The question is what do you do with them?”
“We’ve been very open about it because this is a topic that has been hidden. Research shows that talking about suicide takes the power and pressure away and makes it less likely to occur. The way we prevent future suicides is to have open discussions.”
Ted Slusher credits one of Stuart’s classmates, Steven Ebert, for developing the Hold Hope Initiative and submitting it to the Pepsi Refresh Project. “Steven is a phenomenal young man who has worked tirelessly to promote and bring this project together,” he said.
Slusher also noted that Ebert will be a freshman at Elon University in the fall.
The Slusher family is convinced that, regardless of the whether they receive funding, the message they share about Stuart will make a difference for teenagers who may not know where to turn for help in fighting their own depression.
“There’s always something out there, another viewpoint, something you haven’t seen,” Ted Slusher said. “There’s always something to hold onto, a reason to hold hope.”