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The First Presentation of Send Silence Packing
was held on Thursday, April 24, 2008
on the National Mall in Washington, DC
with speaking program featuring Congressman Patrick Kennedy

The program will be traveling to Active Minds chapters in the 2008-2009 school year. Check back on this page for details.

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Download the Event Flyer
Press Release

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For More Information:

Got an Old Backpack?
Donate it to Active Minds, Inc. and Help Us
Send Silence Packing!

Suicide claims the life of over 1,100 college students each year*, and the impact of each one of those deaths touches us all. Active Minds, Inc., the only national organization dedicated to utilizing the student voice to raise mental health awareness on the college campus, is embarking on an aggressive campaign to promote a dialogue about mental health issues on campus and combat the incidence of student suicide. By empowering students and the student voice in mental health awareness, we envision one day when mental health issues are widely discussed, and the number of these tragic deaths is reduced to 0.

To demonstrate the crisis of college student suicide, we are looking to collect 1,100 backpacks/messenger bags/book bags to be publicly displayed to represent all of those promising lives lost each year. Once we've collected 1,100, we will keep collecting more until we have 2,200 and 3,300 and so on to have multiple simultaneous displays. If you have a backpack that you would like to contribute to this campaign, please send it to**:

Send Silence Packing
Active Minds, Inc.
2647 Connecticut Ave, NW Suite 200
Washington, DC 20008

If you would like to donate a backpack in memory or in honor of a loved one and would like to attach a name/story/picture/etc. to the bag, please laminate your message and attach it securely to the outside of the bag. Please do not put your message inside the bag, as it will not be seen. If you don’t have a backpack but would like to contribute to the Campaign and the work of Active Minds, please send donations to Active Minds, Inc. at the address above, or donate online.

 

**Please note – due to the nature of this exhibit, your backpack will not be returned to you. However, if you include your email address in your correspondence, we will be sure to keep you informed of where and when the backpacks will be displayed.

*National Mental Health Association & The Jed Foundation. (2002). Safeguarding your students against suicide: Expanding the safety network. Alexandria, VA.