In the buzzing West High commons, bag tags swing from backpacks and wristbands rest on lunch tables. Across town, stickers are plastered on windshields and pamphlets are housed in schools and businesses. All share a familiar saying; “I’m Glad You Stayed.” For the community, these items represent an open-minded community with support for mental health. For West High alum Abbey Schley ’22, seeing these items means validation that her organization is making a difference in the community.
After losing her friend Dylan Salge to suicide in 2021, Schley started the I’m Glad You Stayed Project, a federally recognized 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization aimed to educate the community on ‘real-time suicide prevention actions’ and spread mental health awareness. “With my grief and trauma and everything, just sitting there and accepting what happened, doesn’t help me necessarily. So I was trying to think of [what I could do] for the community, for other people that were hurting,” Schley said.
Following his passing, Schley held a balloon release and handed out “Just Keep Swimming” bracelets to honor Dylan and his talent and love of swimming. Both Schley and Dylan’s family received a positive reaction from the community, including what Schley explains as gratitude for their honesty and openness when discussing suicide. It was then that Schley got the idea to start the IGYSP.
“Just the amount of people that showed up for [the balloon release] and that wore the bracelets after that was amazing,” Schley said. “That kind of made me want to do more, so I made an Instagram account and called it the “I’m Glad You Stayed Project’.”
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After creating the Instagram account, Schley made pamphlets detailing ways you can help someone who contacts you and says they are thinking of attempting suicide. Schley and her friends originally passed them out to classrooms and teachers throughout West, but after Schley’s mom brought one of the pamphlets to Schley’s mental health provider, the organization grew. With her mental health provider’s advice and confidence in her, Schley decided to turn the organization she had started at the age of 17 into a federal 501(c) 3 nonprofit.
“We went home and we filled out all the paperwork, and we got a board together,” Schley said. “It’s just been a huge blessing that people have supported us in the way that they do because this was not a thing that we thought was going to happen, this has become far bigger than we thought was possible.”
In addition to several versions of the bracelets and pamphlets Schley made when she started the IGYSP, the organization currently offers a variety of free resources that align with their goals of igniting the conversation around mental health and suicide, teaching as many people as possible the signs of suicidal ideation and to help teens with their own safety and the safety of their family and friends.
IGYSP offers bag tags, stickers and t-shirts that help to start the conversation about mental health and suicide. The organization also teaches Question, Persuade, Refer suicide prevention training in which participants can learn the warning signs of suicide and know how to get help and save a life. Schley also recently started a podcast called “Riding the Wave,” which has allowed for more conversations about mental health and suicide awareness and features members of the community who have been affected by suicide.
In September, they hosted their annual “Tomorrow Needs You” fundraising walk, where members of the community came together and raised money for mental health and suicide awareness while honoring their loved ones who they’ve lost to suicide. Schley was pleasantly surprised with this year’s turnout of almost 300 people and reflects on the day.
“[Dylan’s mom] got some flowers, and she got rice paper, and you could write the name of your loved one who has died by suicide. We released those into the water and that was really beautiful,” Schley said. “We always do a roll call and a moment of silence for people that we’ve lost to suicide, so families will send in their loved one’s name, and we’ll read those off. We also made a memorial video that we showed and we sold t-shirts. It was just a really successful day.”
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In the early moments of the organization, Schley had learned that she needed to be patient and wait for her resources to spread across the community. Now, three years later, Schley has won the Mental Health Influencer of the Year Student Award, given by the Scanlan Center for School Mental Health, and her resources have spread to 43 states and 11 countries. Pamphlets and other resources have been translated into other languages and the organization now has ambassadors around the United States that have helped spread the resources even further.
Louisiana ambassador Briana Perez first heard about IGYSP through her mom after she saw Schley’s social media posts. Perez, her mom and brother Braden took the steps to become ambassadors, including learning the QPR training. In an email sent to WSS, Perez explains her reason for becoming an ambassador and the steps to becoming one.
“I became an ambassador to help others understand that while suicide is a serious issue, it is also preventable,” Perez wrote. “The process of becoming an ambassador is easy. All you have to do is sign up on their website and commit to sharing their resources with your peers and community.”
Perez and the IGYSP have partnered with a local Louisiana suicide prevention foundation, The Terry L. Hunter III Foundation. Together, they have spread mental health awareness and suicide prevention resources throughout schools in the Lafourche Parish School District.
In honor of Suicide Prevention Month, Perez created her own online mental health awareness campaign in which she raised over $700. Perez used the funds to create IGYSP posters to hang up around her school. While she’s already made an impact, Perez still has personal and organizational goals in mind.
“My main goal is to raise awareness about the importance of suicide prevention and lessen the amount of suicides per year. I want to help people be more aware of those around them, so we can potentially save lives,” she wrote. “For the organization, I hope to see even greater outreach, with more ambassadors spreading the message and offering support throughout the world.”
Like Perez, Schley also has bigger goals in mind for the organization. “I know at some point we want some sort of commercial, and it’s a very big goal [to have a billboard] in Times Square,” Schley said, “[We also want] to continue to expand to universities and send starter kits to schools, which would have bracelets, pamphlets [and] bag tags for every student.”
Although IGYSP has become larger than Schley originally imagined, the organization’s openness when talking about suicide that the community has thanked Schley for since the beginning still remains. “I’ve learned through this experience how many people have been affected by suicide, whether that’s losing a loved one or attempting themselves. It’s everywhere. Dylan’s mom said this very early on and it kind of was eye-opening,” Schley said. “Suicide really is a topic everywhere, and there’s not a lot of [talk about it]. There’s not enough resources out there for people, and that’s kind of what we want to do.”
In addition to realizing just how many people have been affected by suicide, Schley also realized that many people often feel alone in their struggle. Schley has made it one of her goals to promote the idea that no one is alone.
“There are a lot of people who feel like there’s no one out there that cares about [them] and there’s no one that loves [them], no one will miss [them] when they’re gone. I’ve started saying to people, ‘as long as I’m alive, you will always have someone who loves and cares for you’,” Schley said. “I think that even just something as simple as that might not feel like a huge thing when you’re saying that to someone who’s struggling, but someone in that mindset will always remember that there is someone who cares about [them], there is someone who would go to the ends of the earth to make sure that [they’re] okay.”
If you or anyone you know is struggling with suicidal ideation or has mentioned harming themselves, call 988 for the suicide and crisis lifeline or 911 in an immediate crisis. For more resources, you can go to www.imgladyoustayedproject.org
