Suicide Awareness In Oxford

Wednesday, 13 February 2019 08:25

You're invited on the trails for a good cause this Family Day.

WOODSTOCK - One local man is getting the community together to raise on suicide prevention.

Let's Ride To Break The Stigma is a suicide awareness event, which will feature snowmobilers on a trail ride through Oxford County.

Event organizer Brad Cundy says he wants to awareness on suicide prevention.

"I think the stigma is still behind suicide and we want to see people talking and we figured Family Day is a great time to do this is keep people taking and get them talking more. As you know, in our area we've had such an increase in a number suicides, especially teen suicides in the last couple of years; The one high school where they had the team pact. And these are the things I want to see stop, I don't want anybody else to be blindsided and feel the way our family did. And I want people just to be aware and keep talking about it, and know that there's always other people out there to talk to."

Cundy wanted to do the event in honour of his brother Darryl, who he lost to suicide last year.

"We were going to do a motorcycle ride to start with, but it was just a tough year to do that so we decided to a snowmobile ride first. My brother and I rode often together, we always talked up going up north to ride. Actually this winter my daughter and I are going to go up to ride, the ride that we never got to do. So we decided that I wanted to do this ride to start with for the winter and we'll do this as an annual ride, hopefully, see how it turns out. But even if it doesn't, we'll still ride every year so that's what prompted me to do this."

Regardless of how the weather fares, Cundy says the event will happen to bring people together and raise awareness. They'll ride the snowmobile trails at a later date.

He adds even if you don't have a snowmobile, you can still pledge a rider and come out and enjoy lunch and raise awareness. People can either email raiseawarenessride@hotmail.com or call 519-581-2274 to pledge or donate.

Proceeds from the event will go towards the Oxford County Walk-In Counselling. The ride will be happening at the Westwood Hills Snowmobile Club House in Beachville.

The event goes from 10:00am to 4:00pm on Monday February 18th.