While I currently live in Los Angeles, make no mistake, I always have and always will call Severna Park my home. You never forget the places that help shape your life and inspire your passions. That was Severna Park High School for me. I can think of no better place to be educated, meet so many wonderful people, and be offered so many incredible opportunities to grow. So when I heard that my home was dealing with an unbelievable amount of loss, I knew that I had to take action.
So, in the summer of 2009, a group of locals, including staff at the high school, and I gathered to address the growing rate of teen suicide in the neighborhood. With the help of over 400 volunteers and generous donors the EMPTY SEAT PSA was born. It was born of a community doing everything they could to deal with their loss and prove that Severna Park isn’t just a series of buildings or a collection of zip codes. No! It is a group of people who love and care for each other, even if it isn’t always apparent, and can offer the support that anyone needs to get through their days. Even if it is one day at a time.
I hate that there is good reason for me to share my EMPTY SEAT PSA again; it seems like it was only just a short while ago that Severna Park experienced such an unfortunate tragedy. Yet, sharing this video and talking about preventing teen suicide isn’t enough.
The video calls for action, very difficult action. The video tells students to stand up and fight teen suicide by recognizing the signs on the faces of their friends and family. It isn’t an easy task, especially during the teenage years where sticking your neck out, challenging a friend, and revealing your emotions is often interpreted as weakness and potentially socially ostracizing.
That’s why its not only dependent on our youth to stay vigilant but also on the adults in the community to continually open a conversation about mental health and recognize their role in it. If a community could come together to make such a beautiful movie, I was hardly alone in this endeavor, than surely a community can come together to fill every household with meaningful and difficult conversations about mental health, that means laying our emotions bare and risking the perceived consequences of doing so.
So many people come to me and express that they are moved by the beauty in the filmmaking of the EMPTY SEAT PSA, but it isn’t the filmmaking that is beautiful. It is the community. All those caring faces, bound together by their love of Severna Park and the people in it. That’s what’s at stake and I know that all we need to do is recognize and fight for that beauty and perhaps these dark times could be lifted. The EMPTY SEAT PSA is a call to action. Always remember:
“It’s better to lose a friendship than a friend.”
– Dan Gvozden, SPHS Class of 2004
