“Misunderstanding” Causes Suicide Prevention Signs to Disappear From Some Fire Stations, But Campaign Continues

You might have seen the signs, or will. They’re beginning to appear on private lawns around Palm Coast and the county, in the windows of businesses, in front of fire stations: “DON’T GIVE UP 1-800-273-8255 Suicide Prevention Hotline.” 

The signs are Toni Mayes’s idea, the result of a combination of factors, not least of them the time when Mayes herself was moments away from ending her life. 

“Years and years ago I was in an abusive marriage,” Mayes says, “and I was at that point where I was on the bathroom floor and I was basically going to take my own life. I got a phone call at the right moment.” It was a simple hello from someone she knew. It was enough. “That word, somebody reaching out is what changed my direction. So we never know what those few words are going to mean to somebody, and that’s really what started it.” 

The signs emerged as Mayes’s new non-profit has: Find Your Peace By Pieces, in units 9 and 11 at 300 Palm Coast Parkway SW, opened in late July. One driving force behind the non-profit was Flagler County’s high suicide rate, which led the state in 2017 and fell only slightly last year. Another was to respond to what Mayes sees as a craving for community.  “We have a big lack of community here,” she says. “Everybody seems afraid to reach out here, afraid of what people might think.”

Sue Urban, who lost a son to suicide just over a year ago, has herself played a big role in the Don’t Give Up campaign. She was delivering 25 signs just today. Some 125 signs have gone up since August, evenly split between private residences and businesses, Urban says–all supported by donations (it costs the center $425 to make 100 signs).

A few days ago though Urban had a surprise. Signs that had gone up at Palm Coast fire stations had been taken down. Some signs that had gone up in apartment complexes and some subdivisions had gone down too. She worried that code enforcement was rounding them up. She aired a live Facebook video from her front yard, headlining it “UNACCEPTABLE.”  

“These signs we’ve been putting them up throughout the county for the last few months, “ she said, explaining the message and the idea behind the campaign. She then said Palm Coast’s code enforcement was removing the signs. “I’m very upset about this, it’s kind of disheartening, being a mom that has lost my child to suicide and I’m trying to give hope to others within a county that we care, and people care. We want to stop suicide. We want to be the ones that somebody can turn to if they need help.” She asked the community to reach out to officials. Her video was shared 80 times by today, and viewed close to 6,000 times. 

Some signs were taken down, but in fact Palm Coast Code Enforcement had nothing to do with it. Misunderstandings and miscommunications did. 

In September the signs went up on properties at Flagler County Fire Rescue stations, and also, near the end of the month, at Palm Coast Fire Stations, where Palm Coast Fire Chief Jerry Forte welcomed them. But Sunday Forte texted Urban: “Sue, please do not place the signs at the stations. We are not within city code to place those signs in the right of way.” Code enforcement hadn’t taken them down, but fire station personnel had, for the reason Forte was mentioning: signs may not be planted in rights of way–not on city property, not in front of private property, either. 

But Forte was not rejecting the campaign. “The signs went up Sunday or Monday and were up for about four or five days. I was informed that they were in right of ways, which we wanted to stay within code,” Forte, who’s known Urban for a long time, said on Monday, referring to the previous week. “The alternative was to bring the signs in and then we would run special suicide awareness information on our Facebook in a series of [items] over several weeks, which would seem to get a lot more attention than a sign in our right of way.” Forte is working on just such a campaign with Patrick Juliano, who’s in charge of the department’s public information efforts. 

There was also the matter of different campaigns: September was Suicide Awareness Month, and the city council had adopted a proclamation to that effect. But October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the city is “transitioning” to that, City Manager Matt Morton said–without diminishing the importance of suicide awareness: “This is a great public issue, it’s a matter of public concern,” Morton said. “Obviously it’s a serious issue for Flagler County, and [Forte]  was supportive of that message as I think the whole council is, frankly.” 

Some members of the council personally so: Mayor Milissa Holland only last May spoke publicly for the first time of her mother’s suicide at age 61 in Palm Coast several years ago, after a long struggle with mental illness. Holland has been supportive of awareness campaigns, Urban’s and Mayes’s among them. 

Urban agreed that the miscommunication had mostly to do with the removal of signs.

“Originally that’s not what we thought the agreement was but that’s fine, we’re thankful they put them up for whatever amount of time that they did,” Urban said. “It shows the support of the fire department and the city backing us up, and they’re still located at the county fire stations, and they’ll stay up as long as the chief and the county allow it.” 

Urban places special importance in signs at fire stations because “one, a fire station is a safe place, it is a place people can go if they need help, everyone knows they can go to a fire station. They’re also visually very visible within the county, so they have a lot of exposure.” First responders, Urban said, also experience the cumulative trauma of suicide and suicide attempts.  “It negatively affects their mental health as well,” and it helps them to work with the center’s efforts. 

The signs removed from apartment complexes and home owner association-led subdivisions had also run into those properties’ rules. Urban is meeting with Morton in a few days to get clarification on where specifically signs may be located, especially regarding businesses. Businesses have been invited to place signs in their windows (with Flagler Beach Commissioner Eric Cooley, who owns the high-traffic 7-Eleven on South Oceanshore Boulevard, showing the way with a sign of his own.) 

Urban said she’s looking forward to the city’s campaign, whatever form it takes. “We’ll take any support that they’re willing to give to us. We appreciate Chief Forte and all the Palm Coast firefighters,” she said. “We support them because they help support us.” 

If anything, the misunderstanding brought plenty of attention to the campaign–and to Urban’s video which, its initial focus on the run-in with the city aside, remains a powerful restatement of how suicide awareness must break its taboo status. 

“It seems like if it’s childhood cancer, or if its cancer-related, everybody is for it and there’s no problem for it,” she said of awareness campaigns. “Or if, and I hate to say this and sound mean but if someone’s child is shot and  its gun violence, it’s super-important and the media is all over it. But if it’s suicide, or suicide prevention, it’s taboo, and there’s a stigma around it. We need to break that stigma. We need to let people know that it is OK to not be OK. We need to let people know that we are here to help, and there are so many people that are willing to help and that are willing to listen.” 

Urban included herself among those anyone can contact, by any means, when they need help. And she showed in her video where best to place the signs. 

Other efforts will continue at Find Your Peace By Pieces, of course. Besides creating a sense of community, the center is intended to create a space where they can find whatever piece of wellness suits them. The center offers all sorts of classes for children, teens, adults, parents with children, the LGBT community, the anxious, the depressed, the artistically minded: there’s “mindful yoga,” “Teens United,” open play for babies and toddlers, gatherings for mothers struggling with postpartum mood disorders. 

On the second Tuesday of the month, there’s a gathering for those who have lost someone to suicide, suicide prevention remaining one of the center’s leading goals. 

Find Your Peace By Pieces is distributing the yard sign to anyone who asks for one: Call (386) 237-2920. The non-profit is at 300 Palm Coast Pkwy S.W. Unit 9 and 11, Palm Coast. See its website or Facebook page.