Forsyth Central to host Out of the Darkness Walk for suicide prevention

At Forsyth Central High School, the Out of the Darkness Walk brought suicide prevention into the county’s oldest high school, a campus that opened in 1955 as Forsyth County High with 429 students. The setting mattered as much as the fundraiser itself, putting a public-health message in a place many Forsyth County families know well.

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention says its Out of the Darkness Campus Walks are its signature student fundraising series, built to engage young people in prevention. That mission landed in a hard reality for Georgia, where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported more than 49,000 suicide deaths nationwide in 2023, about one every 11 minutes, and 1,648 deaths in Georgia in 2024, or about 14.3 deaths per 100,000 residents. AFSP says suicide is the second leading cause of death among people ages 18-24.

Forsyth County Schools says counselors and social workers lead guided discussions with school personnel each year on youth suicide awareness and prevention. Forsyth Central’s counseling program says its mission is to provide proactive support for students’ academic, career and personal-social development. Together, those efforts show why a school-based walk matters now: prevention works best when students, parents, teachers and counselors are all speaking the same language before a crisis becomes an emergency.

The warning signs families are often urged to notice include withdrawal from friends, abrupt mood changes, hopeless talk, or comments that suggest someone feels trapped, worthless or like a burden. Those signs can show up quietly, especially in teens and young adults who may not ask for help on their own. A school event can help make those signals easier to name and harder to ignore.

Local support does exist, including the Forsyth County Mental Health & Wellness Coalition and MHA Forsyth, which provide counseling, education and community support. The AFSP Georgia Chapter serves all of Georgia from Atlanta and focuses on prevention, public education, research fundraising and support for people affected by suicide. In Forsyth County, the walk helped turn a familiar campus into a reminder that mental health is a community responsibility, not a private struggle families should have to carry alone.