FAIRMONT — Driving around Fairmont, you may have seen the little white signs. Carrying simple statements such as “Don’t give up,” “You are not alone,” and “You’re worth it,” the signs are part of a local suicide prevention awareness campaign.

The Don’t Give Up campaign was founded by Fairmont resident Chris Gerhardt and is a collaboration between Gerhardt Safety Solutions; Faribault and Martin County Human Services; Shepherds In; and the Statewide Health and Improvement Partnership.

Gerhardt has experienced a lifetime of being impacted by family, friends, co-workers and classmates dying from suicide, and shared his story on why he decided to start the campaign.

“During the early 1990s, I was told my second-oldest cousin committed suicide, the first time I ever heard of the word,” he said. “During the early 2000s, I was told my role model as a child committed suicide a few years after he graduated.”

During the 2010s, Gerhardt was working in Las Vegas as a police officer and gained more experience with suicide.

“It was common for a single police officer to have to investigate multiple suicides in a single day, most often on Sunday,” he said. “Behind closed doors, police officers would dread working, and often used vacation time on what they called ‘suicide Sundays’ to avoid the trauma associated with that.”

Gerhardt was dispatched to a suicidal male in his 50s firing a rifle inside a gated senior citizen apartment complex. Gerhardt and other officers tried to de-escalate the situation. The man, with several family members in the apartment and building, came outside, refused to drop his rifle and pointed his weapon toward officers.

“That was a day I will never forget because the absolute power of suicide was witnessed right in front of me,” Gerhardt said.

This and several other experiences inspired him to learn as much as he could about how to prevent “suicide by cop.”

The goal of the local campaign is both simple and complex: prevention through awareness. Gerhardt simply wants people to feel like they can reach out and be heard.

“I want people to know that it’s OK to ask for help,” he said. “There are countless people here who truly do care and I feel if we can come together to help each other and lower that stigma and build our resilience, we’ll have a better place.”

Another concern is the mental health impact of isolation because of COVID-19.

“I’m afraid this is the new normal,” Gerhardt said. “The internet was the absolute best invention in the world, but at the same time it was the worst invention. Not only do we consume the good, we consume the bad, and it allows us to dive deep into a world we never had access to before.

“I think that’s the difference and the explanation for the rise of suicidal ideas, and if this is going to be the new normal, where 10 to 20 percent of our students that we know of are significantly considering it, then we have to be able to balance that somehow.”

Gerhardt noted some sobering local statistics.

“Faribault and Martin County are 66th and 32nd out of 87 counties for mental health provider ratios (2,200:1 and 400:1) and our area is agriculturally based, with farm-related deaths rising due to suicide,” he said.

Locally, 14 percent to 19 percent of Martin and Faribault County 11th-graders in 2019 reported “seriously considering suicide in the past year,” with 5 percent to 9 percent attempting suicide (Minnesota Department of Education, 2020). Five percent to 9 percent of about 2,000 junior high and high school in the two counties includes 100 to 180 students who attempted suicide in a year.

“I’ve been working with very competent and compassionate people,” Gerhardt said. “I’ve been working with Caroline McCourt with SHIP, and Anna Garbers who leads the adult and children’s mental health department at Human Services. Together we’ve had several meetings and I was able to get funding through the Minnesota Department of Health and local Human Services. Based on the limited funding, we felt that the yard signs are the most powerful and impactful message delivery system.”

In addition to the signs, the campaign is putting out social media and radio messages.

Above all, Gerhardt recommends that people take the time to talk about the issue and recognize that it is not just going to go away.

“Not doing anything isn’t going to help,” he said. “We need to look out for each other. We just need to open our hearts and our eyes and listen because, at the end of the day, people just want to be heard.”

Those who would like to learn more about the Don’t Give Up campaign can check out Gerhardt’s website: gerhardtsafetysolutions.com or search for Gerhardt Safety Solutions on Facebook.