Let Sharee Proudfoot tell you about resilience. She will tell you about it with a kind of passion and resolve that will echo the trials of a marathon.
However, when Proudfoot — a runner and Vancouver high school teacher of 30 years — speaks of resilience, she’s not referring to sports. She’s not referring to running.
The kind of resilience Proudfoot refers to is the one required in life and in the face of its various challenges. It’s the kind that teaches teenagers and young adults, she said, “that they have these resilient factors, that they can handle what’s going on in their lives and come out on the other side.�
It’s the kind of thing she wants to tell someone like her nephew Matthew. Matthew — a hockey player, a marathoner, a career-guy and world traveler — committed suicide in 2009. He was 25 years old.
As part of the BMO Vancouver Marathon’s new “Run4Hope� campaign, Proudfoot plans to run the half-marathon this May with a pledge to raise at least $1,000 for the Josh Platzer Society for Teen Suicide and Awareness.
“The goal here is just the potential for awareness,� said Proudfoot, noting education as key to suicide prevention.
The Josh Platzer Society — an community resource organization for suicide prevention — is one of seven official charities presented by the 2013 BMO Vancouver Marathon.
The campaign is an option for runners interested in the race to register without the standard fees, but as a sponsored runner for a charity through the marathon’s website. The agreement can see runners charged the difference if they don’t meet the $1,000 minimum come May.
Proudfoot, who’s been a part of the Platzer Society since her nephew’s death, first thought to combine suicide prevention with running after a half-marathon in Victoria last October.
“I was thinking on the way home how you could bring together the healthy part of running and engage students about the kinds of things around this issue,� she said.
Following the suicide of 15-year-old bullying victim Amanda Todd of Port Coquitlam, Proudfoot approached the BMO Vancouver Marathon with the collaboration.
The goal, she said, is to eventually see students engaged in running for a cause as a means to keep suicide prevention and the keyword — resilience — actively in mind.
“It is just a wonderful time for clearing your mind and I definitely got it when I first started running,� she said.
Proudfoot ran her first half-marathon in Seattle in the fall of 2009. She began running in memory of her nephew and in support of her brother and sister-in-law in their preparation for the race. The race would be the same Matthew had done the year prior. This spring, Proudfoot will have ran her sixth half-marathon.
Alongside Canuck Place and Ronald McDonald House, the Platzer Society a smaller charity currently listing four runners.
The BMO Vancouver Marathon invoices all official charities $400 per runner, a standard charge to off-set the cost of runners’ fees and benefits, said Lola Tsai, head of the marathon’s community engagement division.
The charities keep the donations.
BMO Vancouver Marathon will re-evaluate the inaugural program and its approach with charity partners after this year’s event, said Tsai.
“It’ll be worth it,� said Jude Platzer, founder of the Platzer Society, of their part in the campaign. “You never know who this hits. If one kid is depressed or one kid is worried about a friend and they talk to someone … and it turns him around, it’s so worth it.�
Plazter started the organization after her 15-year-old son, Josh, committed suicide in 1999.
“If we could have gone my son through a couple years, I think he would have been OK.�
“The first step,� said Proudfoot, “is awareness.�
Anyone having thoughts of suicide is urged to call 1-800-SUICIDE (784-2433).
To donate to the Josh Platzer Society, or for more information on suicide prevention visit www.teensuicideprevention.org.
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