By Nathan Deal/The Daily Sentinel
For the past seven years, the Grand Junction band Union of None has used New Year’s Eve performances to fundraise for causes its members support.
This year, the band raised $4,000 at its New Year’s Eve party at Cruisers Bar on Horizon Drive, with most of the money donated by attendees through a silent auction. Cruisers donated $400 to the band to support the initiative.
That money will be going to the Western Colorado Community Foundation (WCCF) for its Suicide Prevention and Awareness Fund, which supports Western Slope organizations that work to prevent suicides and raise awareness of the issue.
“A couple of years ago, we lost a friend…. A couple of years ago, it became an issue where we were losing friends and family to suicide,” said Jeff Steele, Union of None’s drummer and manager. “The year before last, we found the Western Colorado Community Foundation and found out that they have specific suicide prevention things.
“We saw their billboards around, so we saw that there was actually someone who was out in the community doing some preventive work on suicide in the valley. We decided that was going to be our charity. I think we’re probably going to stick with them for quite a while.”
WCCF Grants and Community Outreach Director Tedi Gillespie said the Suicide Prevention and Awareness Fund was launched after the Western Colorado Suicide Prevention Foundation closed its doors in 2018. Its endowment was given to WCCF, which has since grown the endowment through individual and corporate donors.
Each year, the WCCF’s Suicide Prevention and Awareness Fund donates $15,000 to $20,000 to various organizations that deal with suicide and the devastating fallout those affected by it go through.
“When you think about a bar like Cruisers and a band like Union of None, where that audience is the folks we want to reach, the younger people, young males in particular that are hit by this issue, just talking about it and sharing it through events like this and others in the community is really critical to helping everybody understand that this is something we can make a difference in if we talk about it,” Gillespie said.
Among the organizations that will benefit from this year’s grants are Postvention Alliance, which works toward awareness of suicide and assists those who are at greater risk of suicide because they’ve lost a loved one to it, and Loving Beyond Understanding, which works with LGBTQ+ teenagers and their families, as LGBTQ+ youth, especially boys, are among the most at-risk groups.
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