After two of their college friends died by suicide within two years of each other, Alex Lindley, Danny Kerth and about 20 of their friends at Mizzou couldn’t sit back and hope for the best any more. They had to do something. As the second-leading cause of death among young people, aged 15-24, suicide claimed 5,723 lives in that age group in 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control. And the stigma associated with mental illness often serves as one of the main reasons teens and college students do not seek therapy when they need it most. Alex, Danny, et al. plan on changing that mindset. Project Wakeup is an endeavor they launched in 2014 to not only break the mental-health stigma, but even more importantly, to save lives.

In this second episode of Mental Health Matters, Executive Director Tom Duff talks with Danny, vice president of Project Wakeup, and Chris Denman, co-host and owner of We Are Live! Radio, to wake people up to suicide prevention. Project Wakeup is sounding the mental-health awareness alarm, and it’s time to listen!