By Amy Byrnes
LITTLE SILVER – Dawn Wilcox, an avid runner who has organized her fair share of races, said she realized just how different the inaugural Ridge Road Run for Suicide Prevention was going to be last year while helping out at the race packet pickup the day before the event.
“We had family members coming in and showing pictures of loved ones they had lost and telling us why this was so important to them,” said Wilcox, who organized the Little Silver 5K for 10 years and continues in her role as one of three directors of the Ridge Road Run. “It was so emotional and the energy was just so different compared to other races.”
What’s most special about the race, according to Christine Moore – whose son, Jack, died by suicide in 2016 – was that students from three local high schools organized it. “The kids embraced this on their own,” she said. “They didn’t do it because a grown-up told them it would be a good idea.”
Students from Red Bank Regional (RBR), Rumson Fair Haven (RFH) and Red Bank Catholic (RBC) high schools came together last year to organize the Ridge Road Run after each school community was touched by suicide. What they thought would be a way for students to put aside rivalries and unite in showing support for those struggling with mental health issues and beginning a discussion about suicide, instead grew into a sizable race that attracted almost 1,500 participants and raised over $118,000 for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Association of Monmouth County.
Shrewsbury resident Michael Eulner was a senior at RBR last year. He was galvanized to do something to prevent another student suicide after seeing on social media how RFH students were impacted by the death of their classmate, Pierce Jarck, in October 2017.
He said he thought, “This just can’t happen again,” and began talking to RBR administrators and staff to see what he could organize to help shine a light on suicide and mental health. As class president, he said he felt like he was in a position to be able to create awareness throughout the Two River area.
He looped in students from nearby high schools – and tapped into Wilcox’s expertise organizing races – to establish the Ridge Road Run, which was held in April 2018 at RFH.
This year’s race will be held at RBR in Little Silver – a few miles down Ridge Road from last year’s setting in Rumson – Sunday, May 19 and will feature a number of events, including a 5K, a 1-mile fun run and kiddie dash. Proceeds for this year’s race will benefit local organizations, designated by each high school, which Wilcox said helps benefit members of the community.
Eulner, 19, who just wrapped up his freshman year at the University of South Carolina, will again serve as co-director for the race. He agreed it wasn’t until participants began to arrive to pick up race packets at Road Runner Sports in Shrewsbury the day before the race that he realized the impact the race would have. While he assumed most runners would be local, Eulner said he was surprised by big groups that arrived from North Jersey and one man who showed him photos of his grandson who had died by suicide and who just looked like a “popular, normal kid who played football,” said Eulner.
Organizers are hoping for better weather than last year’s race day, which was cold and rainy with a driving wind. But that didn’t stop all involved from feeling the warmth of what they were doing.
RBR junior Claudia Kelly, 17, Little Silver – who serves as race co-director again this year – said a number of people came up to her last year to say, “You don’t know how much this means to me.” Kelly, like most of the race’s organizers, had been touched by someone who struggled with depression and suicidal ideation and she wanted to do something that would give her peers an opportunity to start talking about it.
“It was really one of the most empowering days,” said Moore, Fair Haven, whose son Jack was 19 and preparing to start his sophomore year at the University of Richmond when he lost his battle with depression and anxiety. Reflecting on race day, she said, “It wasn’t a sad day. I can’t stress that enough.”
Moore said her mission since Jack’s death is to encourage open conversations about suicide and the Ridge Road Run provides a platform to do that in a “very non-threatening way.” But she thinks kids are more open to those discussions, which is important with all the stress and anxiety teens face and the added pressures of social media. “We are a little snapshot of what’s going on in the world today.”
“I refuse to have what happened to Jack be for nothing,” she said.
Luanne Phillips, whose son Jordan died by suicide in April 2017, will be at the race again this year and said she loved that the kids were the ones who organized the event and wanted to start the conversation.
“I can’t change the past, but we can try to change the future,” said Phillips, whose son was a freshman at Matawan High School at the time of his death and a member of the school’s marching band.
“The Ridge Road Run was more than just a platform for suicide awareness and prevention,” said Lori Jarck, mom to Pierce, a junior at RFH at the time of his death and member of the school’s lacrosse team. “It was a place where we could remember and honor the lives of our loved ones who died by suicide.”
It’s the stigma of suicide, Jarck said, that needs to be removed and people need to learn how to talk about it, even though it can be difficult and uncomfortable.
“My son, Pierce, led a full, vibrant, loving and caring life and I hope that he will be remembered how he lived and not how he died,” said Jarck.
“The Ridge Road Run gave us the chance to outwardly and openly honor and remember our beloved Pierce.”
Get the 4-1-1 on the Ridge Road Run
Described by participants in last year’s race as “empowering” and “special,” this year’s Ridge Road Run for Suicide Prevention is set for Sunday, May 19 at Red Bank Regional High School in Little Silver and offers lots of opportunities to participate.
The 5K race will kick off at 8:30 a.m., followed by a 1-mile fun run at 9:30 a.m. and a kiddie dash at 10 a.m. To sign up for a race, volunteer or make a donation, head to the Ridge Road Run website at ridgeroadrun.org.
Participants can form a team or join one of the over 30 teams registered for this year’s race, like #loveyoumorejackmoore, a group running in honor of Jack Moore of Fair Haven, a college sophomore who died by suicide in 2016, or Breaking the Barriers, in memory of Matawan teen Jordan Phillips who died by suicide in April 2017.
For those wishing to watch the race and cheer on the runners, the course starts in front of RBR and heads down Harding Road to Rumson Road, loops through Hance Avenue and Vista Drive before heading back to the high school on Rumson Road toward Harding Road.
Proceeds from the race will benefit mental health programs at the three organizing high schools and the Mental Health Association of Monmouth County.
If you or someone you know has thoughts of suicide, there are people who want to help. Reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or Text HOME to 741741 to contact a trained crisis counselor. A confidential and anonymous helpline for New Jersey’s youth and young adults called 2nd Floor can be reached at 1-888-222-2228.
This article originally appeared in the May 9-15 print edition of the The Two River Times.
