Lance Winter
WIMBERLEY — Community members gathered at Blue Hole Regional Park Saturday, Sept. 12, for the annual Wimberley Suicide Awareness Walk, focused on remembrance, mental health resources and a simple, but powerful idea — connection.
Now in its third year, the event brought together The Greater Mercy Foundation, the Wimberley ISD Wellness Center and Blue Hole Regional Park, along with student organizations and volunteers.
“This is an event about connecting and it is about conversations,” event organizer Jen Sabatier said.
Participants could take part in a 5K walk or run, visit a wellness fair featuring community resources and stop along a memorial lane where families and friends honored loved ones lost to suicide.
For Sabatier, the gathering is also a reminder that small interactions can make a difference for someone who may be struggling.
“It matters if you say hello to someone,” she said. “It matters if you're reaching out when you see someone struggling.”
Money raised through the event supports affordable and accessible mental health services in the community through the Mother Tree project. Organizer Amy Lyles said funds raised last year helped open the program, which has now been operating for a year.
“Our goal this year was met, so we'll be open for another year to serve our communities,” Lyles said.
The program includes 11 core practitioners and two case managers who help assess clients and connect them with appropriate therapists, counselors and other resources, regardless of their ability to pay.
For 27-year-old Seana Featherston, however, the importance of the event is deeply personal.
Featherston lost her mother when she was 20. She said the loss sent her to “a dark place for a long time” and she eventually discovered that talking with others and sharing experiences helped her heal.
She first attended the Wimberley event last year simply as a member of the community. Seeing others openly acknowledge experiences with suicide had an immediate impact.
“I just couldn't hold back the tears,” Featherston said. “I was very touched.”
She said messages people shared on a bulletin board helped her recognize something she had struggled to see after losing her mother.
“It helped me realize that I'm not alone,” she said.
Featherston said suicide can still be difficult for people to discuss openly, making events that bring people together especially meaningful.
For the organizers, that sense of connection is exactly the point — creating a community where people struggling with their mental health, as well as those grieving someone they have lost, know that someone sees them and cares.
