It's been a while...

So here at CARES we have been out of the office lately so let me catch you up.  In the past month, since I've posted last, I have attended at least 5 QPR's and I'm pretty sure CARES has done even more than that. We have been to FGCU, trained Lutheran Services, Community Christian Academy, and senior healthcare workers.  It's always exciting when community members are being trained on how to prevent a suicide!  We have also been to a ton of social networking events like the business luncheon at Grace, a meeting a Goodwill, and many more-just trying to get the word out there that CARES is here to help the Southwest Florida Community!  And I can't forget to mention our In-the-Dash program-we have been to Mariner, ALC, and we are going to Bonita Springs next Thrusday! 

So as you can see, even though this post was long overdue-we have been busy!  If anyone is interested in receiving QPR training, contact Pedro LaTorre, our program director, and 945-2737!

Donate to C.A.R.E.S. and help save a life!!!

For all of you who donate annually to United Way's giving campaign-DID YOU KNOW????-if you write in CARES as the agency you want to specifically donate to, your donations and support come directly to us!  Help support our cause and save a life by wrting in CARES as your agency of choice!!!

High School Challenge Photography

So Tara and I met with Stacy from Set Free Photography who is now our official photographer for High School Challenge.  She does amazing work and you have to check out her blog at http://www.setfreephotography.blogspot.com/   It's a great idea for all you seniors looking for senior pictures!!!  And remember-High School Challenge is coming up just around the corner in January!!!

Bang Bang You're Dead?

Recently I watched a movie on YouTube called "Bang Bang You're Dead" (not recommended for 18 and younger).  One of the local schools previewed this movie to their students on a Friday and stopped during the middle of what seemed like a very graphic suicide attempt.  The young man who starred in the film displayed very clearly how to hang oneself with an extension cable.  Imagine being a parent and having your 14 year old come home on a Friday night and debriefing about such a movie and such a scene with you.  Although the movie had, what I felt, to be an excellent message that showed the effects of bullying on an average student; its audience, timing, and lack of parental consent when shown to these students was irresponsible.  I liken it to watching Natural Born Killers or Clockwork Orange for the first time...disturbing at best. 

I realize that CARES advocates that talking to teens and individuals about suicide, and educating them on suicide, will definetly not imprint suicidal ideations into their heads; however, what if you have an already suicidal teen that has just seen exactly how he or she can hang his or her self at the end of the school day on a Friday and no trained professional to talk to about it? Simply look at the poster next to this post and ask yourself if this is what your middle-schooler should be watching without your permission?

Way FM

So here is my adventure from this morning.  I was schedule to go to Way-FM and had to be there by 7AM!!! When you live in Lehigh, that is quite a hike.  So I get up at 5:30 and make my way into Fort Myers.  On the way to the station I turn on 88.7 to get an idea of what they are discussing this morning only to hear them discussing my visit!  And, how they would only let me talk if I was 'cool'.  So I pull into Dunkin Donuts (beacause I'm not very cool :)) to bribe them with some food that was sure to induce a sugar coma.  To my surprise, only 20 minutes into my visit I trip over a cable and their signal went out.  They were unable to broadcast for the rest of the morning!  No I'm only kidding-but for some reason their transmitting signal did go out so I had the whole morning to just hang with Jeff Taylor (who, by the way, is the greatest guy).  But just to let all of you know, we rescheduled, and I'll be hanging out with them again, hopefully on the air, on October 23rd from 7-9am.  So listen in!!!

As for some upcoming CARES events-Mark you calendars for a wine tasting at Virginia's restaurant Buon Appetito on November 1 at 4pm-all proceeds go to CARES!!  Also mark your calendar for November 7th which is the semi-annual CARES yard sale which takes place at CARES on the corner of Savona and Del Prado-we are still accepting donations for the yard sale so if you have some old things drop them off at the CARES resource center-one man's trash is another man's treasure!!!  And for goodness sake do not forget NOVEMBER 21-our annual CARES walk!!! 

Dear Twitter community,

Follow us on Twitter!

http://twitter.com/SWFLCARES

Learning the Ropes

Hello all! My name is Sheelah and I am the new intern here at C.A.R.E.S.! I am very excited to be here and excited to learn. I feel that being here will help get me familiar with all the mental health resources in our area. Also help me be more informative on not only suicide prevention but also mental health.

Today I've been working on updating all of our resources for Charlotte County and also getting donations for our High School Challenge coming up in January. Thank you to all of our local businesses for helping us out!!

Survivor's Stepping Out is QUICKLY approaching...

...and we are all getting SO excited! In anticipation of C.A.R.E.S. 3rd Annual Walk coming up on November 21, here are some pictures from last year's walk!

Memorial Mural

Inside the C.A.R.E.S. Resource Center, we have a beautiful memorial mural in our front office. You can buy a piece of this and have it dedicated to a loved one you have lost to suicide.



Sponsorship Prices
Big heart: $100
Small heart: $50
Root: $200
Branch (2 available): $300
Trunk (2 available): $500



Come on in and see the mural or call (239) 945-2737 for details!

6th Grade Transition Group

A new great up and coming CARES 6th Grade
Transition Group! These groups will be geared towards helping sixth graders adjust to life in middle-school-dealing with issues like peer pressure, body image, communication, managing feelings, family, and more!!! Feel free to pass on these fliers to any families you know with 6th graders! Contact myself or Tara Moser for more information. Space is limited and the boys group begins this week so sign up soon! Hope to see you there.

Win Great Prizes While Fundraising for Survivors Stepping Out!

We are getting SO excited for the walk! We have tons of great stuff in store for the event, and I personally can't wait for it to be here! Want to know how else you can help C.A.R.E.S.? Besides walking (and getting all your friends and family to walk too!) at Survivors Stepping Out, get involved with fund raising! The top THREE fundraisers will win one of these great packages!

First place wins a trip to New York City which includes

- Airfare for two (2)
- Two (2) night stay at The Hotel in Rivington
- Two hundred dollar ($200.00) Visa Gift Card

Second place wins a beach getaway at Diamond Head Beach Resort in Ft. Myers, FL which includes

- Two (2) night, three (3) day stay in a Gulfview Suite
- One hundred dollar ($100.00) Visa Gift Card
- Beach Accessories

Third place wins a One Year Black Card Membership to Planet Fitness which includes

- Unlimited free guest privileges; use of over 300 locations throughout the country
- Unlimited tanning in the stand-up tanning booths; unlimited use of massage chairs
- Half Price on cooler drinks, t-shirt, key tag

ALSO.... Raise $1000 and receive a $100 Visa Gift Card
Raise from $500 to $999 and receive a $50 Visa Gift Card

Click here to register and sign up to fund raise!

C.A.R.E.S. 3rd Annual Survivors Stepping Out
November 21, 2009
Veteran's Park, Cape Coral, FL
Help support the cause and register for CARES Survivors Stepping Out.
9am Registration! 10am Walk!

C.A.R.E.S. 3rd Annual Survivors Stepping Out Walk

Hello all! This is Eugenia, C.A.R.E.S.'s Marketing Consultant just dropping in to remind you to save the date! We are just TWO months away from our 3rd Annual Survivors Stepping Out Walk!

We will walk in honor of a loved one lost to suicide, walk to raise awareness, walk to save lives. This event will be filled with outreach, support, education, and healing. Funds raised through the walk will directly benefit the programs C.A.R.E.S. offers, free of charge, to our community!

It's only $10 to walk, and that gets you a shirt and breakfast too! Visit http://www.active.com/donate/careswalk for more information on how to register.

The event will be on November 21, 2009 at Veteran's Park in Cape Coral. Registration starts at 9AM and the walk begins right at 10AM, so lace up those sneakers and we will see you there!

Happy Friday!

Ok! So beginning work on developing group for middle school girls and all their angst! Try googling "psychoeducational group ideas+adolescent girls" and see what you come up with-it's crazy. Groups for hispanic middle school girls on juvenile probation, groups for adolescent girls that are violent offenders, groups for middle school girls that have some sort of STI. It's unreal-I cannot get any ideas for a preventative group! That's kind of sad if you think about it-people are so wrapped up in treating problems that they are forgetting to take preventative meaures so our girls in this country don't have to get to that point! When I am done developing it and the group is (hopefully) a success I am going to post it on google for all the world to see that way future interns can stumble across and be like "finally!".
Well, what else is coming up at CARES you ask? We are now offering free QPR training (suicide prevetion training) and free CEU's to the community so if you are reading this and in need of your annual CEU's-contact us here at CARES and we would be more than happy to offer the training at your agency. Tara and I are also going to an event at South Fort Myers High tomorrow bright and early at 8am. I'm sitting here trying to decipher the chicken scratches on my calendar and cannot even make out what is taking place at this event. Luckily, I just googled it and it is "The Red Conference" for student leadership. So, if you're reading this and want to register or just want to know more about it click here ----> http://www.swfloridafca.org/TheREDConference/ . Hopefully we will see you there tomorrow-have a great weekend!

Visit Our Websites!!!

And by the way, don't forget to visit our websites at:
Homepage: http://www.caresprevention.org/
Facebook: http://apps.facebook.com/causes/103390?m=14947678
YouTube: www.youtube.com/users/4cares
Myspace: www.myspace.com/swflcares

My Very First Blog

I have to admit, I have never blogged before so I hope I have the correct blog courtesy, format, style, etc. to make it interesting and appealing to all who are reading it. Normally I would go on other blogs and study their blogging style, what's popular and what's not, pictures or no pictures---you know the drill. But, because of a lack of time for such an endeavor I have decided to wing it!! Just a sidenote, I am comma happy in my writing so please don't allow it to distract you :).

So far I am in my 4th week of interning here at CARES and so far it's been a great new experience. I'm taking that most of you who come across this website already know about CARES and their mission ,events, and everything that goes along with it. But in case some of you have stumbled across it, or google it, or things like that let me explain.

CARES stands for Community Awareness in Recognizing and Educating on Suicide. Our mission is to educate and support the members of the community in suicide prevention. For youth, we have special programs like "In-the-dash" which is a 30 minute curriculum offered to Middle and High school students and another program called High School Challenge where groups of teenagers have a performing arts competition. Also, we have something called the Youth Leadership Task Force where representitives from the local high schools meet, have fundraisers, and bring suicide awareness back into their schools. For the public we have a resource center in Cape Coral that offers referrals and information to anyone who has lost a loved one to suicide or may be suicidal themselves. Additionally we have an annual 5k Walk/Fundraiser taking place November 31st (A SHAMELESS PROMOTION: to sign up or fundraise the walk, just go to www.active.com/donate/careswalk and follow the instructions). We have many more events and programs so to find out about them in detail visit www.caresprevention.org, or our facebook or myspace page. But basically, we are an agency that literally cares for the people of Southwest Florida and want to offer hope, resources, and education to those who are hurting.

Like I said I am an intern here, coming from FGCU, and will be blogging every Tuesday and Friday until May. So please continue to check in and see what's going on and get an inside look into a day in the life at CARES.

(ANOTHER SHAMELESS PROMOTION: I attached our new PSA for you all to view so please give it a look. It's very touching!)