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HAZLETON — Samantha Neaman told attendees of the fifth annual Help Stop the Silence Walk against Suicide on Sunday that every time one of her children doesn’t answer the phone on the first ring or doesn’t immediately respond to a text, she fears that they may be dead.

Neaman attributes her fear to the loss of her son, Kyle Koslop, to suicide in 2007. He was just 13.

She said her son was academically and socially successful. She did not see any signs that he would take his own life.

Now, she is reaching out to others through the annual walk and other activities throughout the year, to raise not only money but awareness about the problem of suicide among young people.

The annual event is sponsored by the Hazleton Area High School SADD Club and Help STOP the Silence Suicide Prevention and Support, a program of Catholic Social Services.

She encouraged over 200 attendees to invade the privacy of their children in an effort to find out what they were feeling, to hug them and tell them they are loved, and most of all, she urged listeners to be kind to others.

Neaman said her son Kyle’s shoes remain unfilled as a reminder of his life.

“But our shoes can move,” she said, calling upon attendees to be strong advocates in the fight against suicide.

Deacon Ed Shoener, of the Dioceses of Scranton, lost his daughter to suicide this past August.

Shoener, a strong advocate for those with mental illness, told of his daughter graduating from Scranton High School and going on to receive a bachelor’s degree in business from Penn State and an MBA from Ohio State University.

Those with mental illness can lead successful lives, he said, with the help of therapy and medication.

Katie Shoener’s first attempted suicide was during the Spring of her senior year, he said. Medications and treatment gave her 12 more years to be part of her family, to live her life.

Still, he said, the stigma must be removed from mental illness for society to successfully address the issue.

“It’s suggested that every year or two we get a ‘check up from the neck up,’” he said. “People need to fearlessly address mental illness, just like any other disease like cancer or diabetes.”

Shoener said he intuitively felt a strong need to write his daughter’s obituary shortly after her death letting people know that she died from suicide and had battled bi-polar disease.

He said when the obituary “went viral,” he heard from people as far away as Italy who had family members lost to suicide.

Despite great pain and sadness, Shoener and his wife Ruth, want to use their own experience to educate others about suicide, working to remove the stigma and encouraging improved health care for those with mental illness.

At the conclusion of the presentation, walkers were able to choose between walking outside or indoors because of rain that continued throughout the afternoon.

Most chose to walk indoors, with the weather unable to quash their commitment to removing the stigma of suicide from society, making treatment for mental illness readily available and building support systems for those who are suffering.

Other social service agencies were also available at the event to provide both information and inspiration for attendees.

Neaman lauded over 100 volunteers, clad in orange shirts, who “from beginning to end” again made success of the event possible.

Deacon Ed Shoener addresses attendees of the fifth annual Help Stop the Silence Walk to Prevent Suicide, sharing his own story of the loss of his daughter to suicide this past August.
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/web1_g1.jpg.optimal.jpgDeacon Ed Shoener addresses attendees of the fifth annual Help Stop the Silence Walk to Prevent Suicide, sharing his own story of the loss of his daughter to suicide this past August. Geri Gibbons | For Times Leader

By Geri Gibbons

Times Leader

Reach the Times Leader newsroom at 570-829-7242 or on Twitter @TLnews.