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Kappa Alpha Order, Tau Chapter — Suicide Prevention Month Fundraiser

September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, and the brothers of Kappa Alpha Order, Tau Chapter are raising money for The Jed Foundation (JED).

Here's why it matters: according to the CDC, suicide is the second leading cause of death for young people ages 10 to 24. Young people in that range account for 13% of all suicides in the country. These are our classmates, our teammates, our brothers and sisters and friends.

We chose JED because their work happens where we live. JED is a national nonprofit that protects the emotional health and prevents suicide for the nation's teens and young adults, and they do it by partnering directly with high schools and colleges over multi-year engagements to strengthen the mental health, substance misuse, and suicide prevention systems already on campus. In practice that means:

Helping schools identify students at risk before a crisis, not after

Training faculty, staff, and students to recognize warning signs and know what to say

Strengthening clinical care, crisis response, and the policies that determine what happens when a student is struggling

Campaigns like Seize the Awkward that make starting the conversation less uncomfortable

JED's CEO has described the campus program as working "way upstream" — finding students in distress long before they reach the edge.

We don't want to just write a check and move on. We want this chapter to be a catalyst for change on our own campus: to be the guys who make it normal to check in on a brother, to ask the awkward question, and to keep asking. Raising money is the start of that, not the end of it.

Every contribution helps, whatever the size.