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With many dressed in raincoats and ponchos, those participating in the Coffee County Out of the Darkness Walk Saturday did not let a steady rainfall keep them from walking for suicide prevention at Manchester’s Rotary Park Saturday, Sept. 16.

The event raised $41, 710 to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Event founder Deidra Goins said the Coffee County Out of the Darkness Walk began following the death of her son Blake, as she was looking for a way to mark his passing or find some meaning in it.

“I came across the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, did a little research on them and I saw they are a top-rated charity doing stellar work in the field of suicide prevention and then I noticed that one of their fundraising components is an Out of the Darkness Walk and I thought we should bring one here to Coffee County,” she said during the event.

Goins said that while this was just the third year for the event, it is not the first time walkers have had to persevere through the rain.

“In 2021 we had a tropical depression over Tennessee because there had been a hurricane,” Goins said. “We walked in a deluge…so we are bringing the sunshine with all these happy faces.”

Halli Drake, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Tennessee area director, said the mission of the organization is to “save lives and bring hope to those affected by suicide.”

Drake said this is done through four pillars, including research, education, advocacy and loss and healing programs.

Drake said she believes it is important for communities to host events such as The Out of the Darkness Walk.

“I know for me it is having that sense of community, that sense of connection because a lot of times, whether you are personally struggling or you have lost a loved one, it can be pretty isolating,” Drake said. “It can feel like you are the only one going through it and it is powerful to come together and see all of these people who have had similar experiences.”

The Mending Hearts peer support group was one of several community resources that set up a booth during the event.

Group member Pam Belzil said the group meets every Thursday from 6-8 p.m. in Tullahoma.

“There was just a need to have one another to talk to,” Belzil said. “We have also learned that having a peer-led group to speak to for suicide grief is more effective than anything else because we each understand exactly and we can open up and speak freely of our own individual experience.”

Reina Shanks was among the dozens of walkers who gathered to remember a loved one during the event.

“We are walking in honor of my sister who committed suicide about seven years ago,” Shanks said. “To show people that people do care. It is very hard for the ones left behind with the guilt and the shame and the anger and everything that you feel and just to show others that there is a better way out there. There is help, there is hope.”

Just prior to walkers setting off on their 20-minute journey, Goins told participants who have been touched by suicide not to let grief and anger combine into debilitating feelings of guilt.

“I hope today when you walk, if you hear that nagging voice, I hope with every step you take you replace that with I am enough, I did enough, I loved enough, I was enough…,” she said.