Lexington VA suicide prevention team kicks off awareness month at North Lime Donuts

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - The Lexington VA Health Care System’s suicide prevention team held a kick-off event for Suicide Prevention Awareness Month at North Lime Donuts on Friday.

September is National Suicide Prevention Month.

The Lexington VA Suicide Prevention team partnered with North Lime Donuts. They changed one of the shop’s donuts into purple and teal, the colors for mental health awareness. The team offered resources and information during the event.

Autum McCane, chief of mental health at the Lexington VA Health Care System, said suicide prevention requires a broad effort.

“In order to be really successful at suicide prevention, we have to spread the message that suicide prevention is everybody’s problem,” McCane said.

McCane said the team’s presence at the donut shop is meant to meet people where they already are.

“It’s just a way to kind of get embedded in the community, drink a cup of coffee, and start talking about how do we educate and how do we prevent suicide,” McCane said.

Partnership with North Lime Donuts

The Lexington VA suicide prevention team has partnered with North Lime Donuts for years, using resources and the purple and teal donuts to bring attention to mental health, especially for veterans.

Makenzie Simpson, assistant manager at North Lime Donuts, said the partnership is meaningful.

“The whole point of this is to get the conversation started and to talk about things because awareness leads to prevention,” Simpson said.

Encouraging conversation

McCane said talking about mental health can be difficult but is an important part of prevention.

“Talking about it can actually be very preventative and the more we educate people on how to ask the right questions, how to seek help, how to bring family members to the table, that’s some of our best frontline defenses of preventing suicide,” McCane said.

McCane said it is not uncommon for veterans to struggle with depression, anxiety and PTSD.

“We need to have kind of a full court press for our entire community to really get invested in suicide prevention with our veterans who have sacrificed so much for our country,” McCane said.

Anyone experiencing thoughts of suicide, or with a loved one who has, can call the 988 hotline.