Despite some rain early Saturday morning, the weather cooperated just in time for the third annual Defeat Depression Fun Walk/Run at Bell Park.
Hundreds of friends, family members, and people who have suffered from depression themselves put on their sneakers for the annual event to raise awareness to help erase the stigma associated with depression, and also collect funds for local mental health support initiatives.
Last year’s event raised nearly $30,000 for the Canadian Mental Health Association Sudbury/Manitoulin, and the goal for this year’s event was to collect $40,000 for the Northern Initiative for Social Action (NISA), a peer-run, recovery-oriented mental health organization located in downtown Sudbury.
Dinah Laprairie, the editor of Open Minds Quarterly, the official publication of The Writer’s Circle, a program run by NISA that encourages its members to express themselves through poetry and creative writing, said the funds will help support a number of local programs.
“Any fundraising is so beneficial to us,” she said.
In the last two years NISA has added evening support groups for family members, mothers, and people bereaved by suicide.
