The Newtown Visiting Nurse Association held a sale at its VNA Thrift Shop last weekend, with proceeds going towards Newtown Suicide Prevention Initiative.

The sale is part of a new NVNA program, where the VNA Thrift Shop chooses one day a month to donate earnings from that day to local organizations.

According to VNA Thrift Shop Manager Cris Fadus, the VNA Thrift Shop was already planning to donate their proceeds from a Saturday in September to the local initiative. The storm that hit Newtown and brought historic levels of rainwater with it on Sunday, August 18, changed those plans.

Fadus said VNA Thrift Shop, located on the ground level of Edmond Town Hall, got several inches of standing water, and then learned they were going to have to empty out the store space. With a new focus on clearing all inventory to assess the damage, the sale date was moved in order to still have an event that would raise funds while beginning the cleanout process. As a result, the sale was bumped to August 24.

Shirts, pants, dresses, skirts, and more lined several tables outside the VNA Thrift Shop, and came in all sorts of colors. On top of the check-out table at the sale were many light and dark blue bracelets with the phrase “you are not alone,” as well as the numbers 988. In 2022, 988 was launched as the national emergency suicide prevention hotline number.

NVNA President Mary Tietjen said all of the clothes that were not sold by the end of the sale were taken to a fundraiser held that day in Southbury, where they collected clothing to then donate to Southbury and Oxford residents greatly impacted by the flood.

Tietjen credited Fadus with the idea for the monthly sales to support community organizations. Fadus said whenever someone walks in their doors during one of these sales, it gives the VNA members the chance to raise awareness about the local causes and why they are important.

To the NVNA, it is a natural extension of their work as a social service organization over the past 105 years.

“It’s a social service organization donating to others, basically. And all of our funds stay right here in Newtown,” Fadus said. “By donating once a month, it just means that these organizations can get their funds, and to a lot of these small organizations like [Newtown Suicide Prevention Initiative]. Even $300 or $350 can make a difference.”

Fadus said she knew Newtown Suicide Prevention Initiative Co-Chairs Maureen Crick Owen and Anna Wiedemann. When she learned from Wiedemann that the initiative did not have any funds to promote their cause, Fadus, who felt strongly about their cause, mentioned it to Tietjen and put them on their working list of organizations to donate to.

A Disease You Can’t See

September is National Suicide Prevention Month and serves as a way to advocate for the importance of mental health, raise awareness about warning signs and available suicide prevention resources, and share support for those who have gone through loss.

For both Crick Owen and Wiedemann, advocating for suicide prevention and awareness has been as much of a long-standing effort as it has been a personal one.

Crick Owen says that a reason “near and dear to her heart” for her advocacy is that she lost her nephew, Matthew James Crick, to suicide in 2007 when he was just 19 years old. She shared a close bond with him and loved him dearly, she said. Together, they had a tradition where she would take him out every year into New York City.

“Matt suffered so much inside,” Crick Owen said. “Nobody would know it by talking to him or looking at him … He was in college, and during the summer, he’d work at ShopRite in Southbury, and nobody knew. They were shocked. And it’s because they can hide things. They don’t let anybody know.”

Crick Owen says she struggled after his death, feeling his absence in the little things, but that talking about it in a support group helped her.

“Mental health is a disease, and while you can’t see it like a broken arm — that was one of the first things that they told me when I went to a support group after my nephew passed away — it is still a disease. You just can’t physically see it,” Crick Owen said.

Since then, Crick Owen, as well as Wiedemann, have made an active effort to not only advocate for suicide prevention and awareness, but to break the stigma surrounding it. To that end, they worked to create Newtown Suicide Prevention Initiative several years ago. However, they faced some difficulty initially getting it off the ground.

“We had a few meetings with the town and people who were part of the health department, and every month we’d meet and they’d say, ‘let’s just table it till the next month,’” Wiedemann said. “Maureen knew that the frustration level in me was rising, so we went to [then First Selectman] Dan Rosenthal, and he gave us his blessing.”

Crick Owen said the organization has held several different events since 2020. Throughout the pandemic, Newtown Suicide Prevention Initiative held Zoom informational panels and meetings for the public to raise awareness, especially with the impact the pandemic had toward mental health.

In 2021, Newtown Suicide Prevention Initiative held a special tree planting ceremony outside of Newtown Community Center to honor the memory of loved ones — from family, friends, and neighbors, who passed away from suicide. The initiative had people email them pictures of loved ones, which were hung onto the trunk of the tree with a ribbon.

Newtown Suicide Prevention Initiative also makes an active effort to participate in health fairs and share their own brochures, as well as materials they received from the American Foundation for Suicide, to the public.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 49,000 people died by suicide in 2022. That equates to one death every 11 minutes.

Crick Owen said that she is huge on reducing the stigma surrounding mental health because “nobody wants to talk about it.”

“If we can get one person, even just one person, to talk about it, then we’ve accomplished something,” Crick Owen said.

To her and Wiedemann, the sale at VNA Thrift Shop was another step in their efforts to raise awareness about suicide prevention.

“We try to do something different each year to raise awareness,” Wiedemann said. “We got plastic things to put behind all the bathroom doors in all the schools, the library, Edmond Town Hall, and different posters go in with information regarding suicide prevention, who they can call, who they can reach out to … If it can save someone, it matters.”

Newtown Suicide Prevention Initiative plans to participate in Newtown’s Health Fair later this fall.

If anyone has lost a loved one to suicide, they can reach out to Newtown Human Services at 203-270-4330 for support. Please note that this number is not for crisis situations.

If anyone knows someone who is in distress or contemplating suicide, please call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, or visit 988lifeline.org. In an emergency, call or text 911.

For more information about Newtown Suicide Prevention Initiative, contact Maureen Crick Owen at maureencrickowen@gmail.com.

For more information about the VNA Thrift Shop, call 203-270-4377, or visit its Facebook page (Visiting Nurse Association of Newtown, Inc).

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Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.