News and Announcements

$12,000 SNOW HILL SCHOLARSHIP FOR 2012 ANNOUNCED

News added: 2012-02-03
Terms of the fourth annual Jesse Klump Memorial Scholarship have been announced and the Fund will grant a four-year scholarship with a value of $12,000 to a member of the 2012 graduating class of Snow Hill High School.

“We’re pleased to again be able to offer a substantial amount, up to $3,000 a year, to support a deserving Snow Hill student, and look forward to receiving many nominations,” said scholarship fund president Kim Klump. The deadline for nominations is May 1st.

Candidates for the scholarship must have compiled a minimum 3.0 grade point average throughout high school and intend to continue their educations beyond graduation at a certified institution. Most important, however, is that they have demonstrated a willingness to put others ahead of themselves and that they are pursuing further education toward a career of service.

“We like to say that we’re supporting the educations of kids who want to use their learning to make the world a better place,” said Fund Board member Ron Pilling. Past winners have gone on to universities, but there is no requirement that the student seek a college degree. “If the best candidate wants to go to technical or vocational school, we’ll support that as long as the school is recognized by an academic certification agency,” Pilling said.

The scholarship nomination process begins by completing a simple form, available at this website by clicking on “Scholarship Nomination Form” (see left) or calling the Fund at 443-982-2716. Candidates must be nominated by an adult member of the community without input from the student, and in addition to the form it is critical that nominators provide details about the young scholar’s character, compassion and activities in the community.

“We’ve had Girl Scout leaders, Sunday School teachers, and mentors among past nominees,” Klump sad. “But the bottom line for all of these kids is living every day a life of caring and giving. It is these stories we want to hear.” The scholarship winner is announced at the annual awards night at Snow Hill High.

SOS! Suicide Prevention Comedy Tour

News added: 2012-01-26
Don't miss the 5th Annual Suicide Prevention Comedy Tour at Seacrets Resort in Ocean City (49th Street on the Bay), April 19th. The show starts at 7:00 p.m.

Headlining the tour is New York-based comedian Robert Kelly, a regular at the COMEDY CELLAR and a featured artist on Showtime's LAST CALL with CARSON DALY.

Nikki Glaser will share the stage. Nikki has twice been a runnerup on LAST COMIC STANDING. With her will be Ryan Hamilton, from COMEDY CENTRAL. Music will be provided by Galaxy Collective and Rick Kennedy, and our emcee will be Dave The Fruit Guy, the funniest guy in OC.

Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door. To buy tickets online, click on Donations (see left) and then click through to our secure PayPal site. In the "Add Special Information to Seller" box type "Comedy Tickets" and we'll mail them to you promptly. Or call us at 443-982-2716 and we'll make all the arrangements and get you your tickets.

There will be a silent auction filled with special items that you simply cannot live without and a 50/50 raffle guaranteed to have a winner (could be you, ya think?)

It's going to be a lot of fun. Seacrets is providing the food, so come hungry and thirsty, and come ready to laugh and support a great cause - ending suicide in Worcester County.

LOCAL FOUNDATIONS OFFER THEIR SUPPORT

News added: 2011-12-02
Since the announcement of the Worcester County Youth Suicide Awareness and Prevention Program, four foundations have stepped forward with generous grants to support our efforts. The Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore gave us $7,500 through their Community Needs Program. An Ocean City-based organization, the Humphreys Foundation, sent us $5,000. The Estelle Friedman Gervis Family Foundation challenged us with a dollar-for-dollar match, up to $5,000 and we met the challenge. Finally, the Choptank Electric Trust provided nearly $1,000 that we used to purchase computer hardware, software and media.

The generosity of these institutonal givers means several things to us: We start the new program in relatively sound financial condition and the need for a proactive suicide prevention program for the young people of Worcester County is widely recognized. However, well over half of our first year's budget has been provided by individual donors, a statistic that says a lot about the people who care about kids in our coastal county.

We are profoundly grateful to everyone, regardless of the level of their support and we promise that your donatons wil prove to be valuable investments in the community.

MEET OUR SUICIDE PREVENTION PROGRAM MANAGER

News added: 2011-11-18
October marked National Suicide Prevention Month and the Jesse Klump Memorial Scholarship Fund announced the launch of the Worcester County Youth Suicide Awareness and Prevention Program with the selection of a Program Manager. Hope Hutira-Green will spearhead the Fund’s efforts to teach the warning signs of youth at risk of becoming victims of suicide to everyone in the community who may be in a position to save a young life.

While calls to local crisis response centers have remained constant in recent years, the overall rate of suicide in Worcester County is still 30% higher than the state average. Between 2008 and 2009, suicides in Worcester and Wicomico Counties increased by 60%. A 2008 Governor’s Report on youth suicide called the rate of youth suicide in Worcester County “higher than expected.”

“Hope comes to us with the best of all possible backgrounds,” Fund President Kim Klump commented. “She has taught, manned crisis phone hotlines and served in a high school guidance office, but most important she is passionate about the mission - ending youth suicide.”

The Fund has developed working partnerships with both the Worcester County Board of Education and the Worcester County Health Department. Working through the education system, a series of presentations explaining the risks and the signals young people who are suicidal often give out will be scheduled at every school in the county. With the Fund, the Health Department co-sponsors monthly support group meetings for survivors of loved ones of any age who lost their lives to suicide.

“Eventually, I hope to be spreading the word not only at public schools, but also private schools, churches, fraternal organizations, scout groups, community forums, anywhere that people may gather who are concerned about the mental health and safety of Worcester County kids,” Green said. The program teaches recognition of warning signs like severe depression, changes in physical appearance, loss of interest in favorite activities and giving away treasured possessions. “We then teach people how to keep kids at risk safe until a trained counselor can step in, and provide information on counseling options,” Green continued.

Klump facilitates the survivors’ meetings with a member of the Health Department’s Crisis Response Team, providing a place where survivors can share their experiences with other families who have suffered similar losses. “Recovering from a death due to suicide is more difficult than grieving after a loss due to natural causes,” Klump explained. “There is a profound sense of guilt that is complicated by the shame that surrounds suicide, shame that is the result of not understanding the causes that might lead one to see no other solution to problems than suicide. We now treat depression as a disease, not as a personal weakness, and suicide is intrinsically linked to depression.”

Financial support for the program has been provided by the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore and the Humphreys Foundation of Ocean City. “The public has been very generous in supporting our efforts,” said Klump, “We appreciate the local recognition of the extent of the problem and the confidence our friends, through their gifts, have placed in us to address it.”

For more information on the prevention program, visit www.jessespaddle.org or call (443) 982-2716. To learn about the support group, which is open at no cost to anyone who has suffered a loss to suicide, visit the same website or call the Health Department at (410) 629-0164.

SURVIVORS OF SUICIDE SUPPORT GROUP

News added: 2011-08-25
Recovery following the loss of a loved one to suicide is a painful and complicated journey through grief. Coming to terms with loss can be very difficult when faced alone. Regardless of the age, relationship or tragic circumstances surrounding their loss, there are others who understand.

Now survivors in Worcester County are not alone. The Jesse Klump Memorial Scholarship Fund and the Worcester County Health Department have partnered to host monthly support group meetings for those left behind by suicide. Meetings will be held at 6 p.m. on the third Wednesday each month beginning September 21 at the Berlin office of the Health Department, 9730 Healthway Drive adjacent to Atlantic General Hospital. Meetings will be conducted by a trained facilitator and a licensed social worker.

“We wanted to create a welcoming place of compassion and understanding,” said scholarship fund President Kim Klump, who lost her son to suicide in 2009. “It can be a huge relief to talk openly about suicide with people who really understand.” Kim trained in support group management through a program sponsored by the America Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Anyone who has lost a friend or family member is invited to attend at no cost. Support group meetings are casual, attended only by survivors and facilitators.

“Family members and friends often feel stigmatized because suicide is not a topic most people are comfortable discussing,” said Alisa Crockett, a licensed clinical social worker who supervises the health department’s Suicide Prevention Program. “This can lead to feelings of isolation as individuals attempt to manage their grief and pain alone. We are very pleased to be partnering with the JKMSF to provide this service to the families in our community who have suffered a loss due to suicide.”

“In addition to our scholarship, we decided we needed to do more than help just one student each year,” said Fund Officer Ron Pilling. “Our goal is to find and train a program director whose job it will be to teach the warning signs of a youth in crisis in schools, churches, and anyplace where people who care about children and youths may gather. Presentations will teach how to recognize the signs and symptoms of a youth at risk for suicide, how to access appropriate care for a suicidal youth and how to ensure safety until professionals arrive on the scene.”

For more information about the Survivors of Suicide support groups call the Worcester County Health Department at 410-629-0164

Jesse's Paddle 2011 Raises $12,000

News added: 2011-08-03
While over forty boats scoured the Pocomoke River for scavenger hunt prizes at the July 16th “Jesse’s Paddle” fundraiser, plans moved ahead for the establishment of a Worcester County Youth Suicide Awareness and Prevention Program, to be funded in part by the proceeds of the event.
The Jesse Klump Memorial Scholarship Fund was established in 2009 to provide financial aid to graduating seniors of Snow Hill High School. This year, the Fund accepted the challenge to create a county-wide program to teach the identification of the warning signs of youth in crisis, to reduce the high incidence of youth suicide in Worcester County and to provide support to those who have lost friends or family members of any age to suicide.
“The new program is another way for this fund to help members of this community who have been so generous in helping us attain our goals of building character and scholarship. Suicide is an understated problem in Worcester County. We want to help educate the community to recognize potentially worrisome characteristics and direct those individuals to the help they need,” Fund President Kim Klump said.
Toward that end, the Fund plans to kick off the program this fall by hiring a part-time Program Director whose responsibility will be taking the story of the danger of youth suicide to every school in the county, then to anyone interested who may be in a position to save a young life. Partnerships with the Board of Education and the Health Department are in the works.
“Our Program Director will be someone with an appropriate background – guidance counseling, a mental health provider, a social worker – and we will begin the search process as soon as adequate funding is in place,” Kim said.
Kim completed training to enable her to organize suicide survivors’ support groups, and the Fund plans to begin monthly meetings in Berlin and Snow Hill by September. Anyone who has lost someone to suicide, regardless of the victim’s age, will be welcomed. “The consequences of suicide are the same for any survivor, regardless of whether the victim was 16 or 60,” said Fund Board member Ron Pilling. “Grief, guilt, bewilderment, these are all very difficult emotions to overcome. Support groups, led by trained and compassionate facilitators, can be a huge help, and none exists in Worcester County now.”
The Fund’s scholarships will continue to be endowed and presented annually, Kim reported. In 2011, Snow Hill High senior Victoria Danna received a scholarship that over four years will amount to $12,000. “Our scholars are all young people who have excelled in the classroom, but more important, have demonstrated a willingness to step outside themselves to help others,” she explained. “We like to say they plan to use their educations to make the world a better place”

VICTORIA DANNA NAMED 2011 JESSE KLUMP MEMORIAL SCHOLAR

News added: 2011-06-07
The Third Annual Jesse Klump Memorial Scholarship, valued at $12,000, was awarded to Snow Hill High School graduating senior Victoria Danna, who plans to continue her studies at Salisbury University in the fall, majoring in International Studies with an eye toward a career in global relations.
“Unlike those scholarships based solely on academics and essays, I was nominated by members of the community for Jesse’s scholarship. Because I was chosen based more on my character and my volunteerism than on my grades, I feel especially honored,” Miss Danna said.
Created in 2009, the program has been able to annually increase the amount provided to a Snow Hill graduate who has done well in the classroom and has also demonstrated a willingness to put the needs of others first. “We accept nominations from the community-at-large rather than direct application by the student,” Board President Kim Klump explained. “Victoria received three separate nominations, each praising her scholastic ability and her kindness, compassion and charitable energy. She exemplifies everything we look for in a young person and we are confident that she will use her education to make the world a better place.”
“I was very surprised – and touched – that someone thought to nominate me,” Victoria said. The Board of Directors of the scholarship fund reviews nominations and makes the final decision. “We had many fine scholars nominated this year,” Kim reported, “and there were several who could easily have won, but Victoria’s nominations set her apart.”
Victoria credited her family for providing the example that resulted in her selection. “My mom, step-dad, and grandparents have always valued and reinforced the importance of treating others with kindness and respect, no matter who they are or where they’re from, just as you would want to be treated,” she said. Her mother, Kathey Larger, is the Forensic Director for Eastern Shore Psychological Services. Her stepfather, Doug Larger, works in industrial marketing. She has two younger brothers, Chris Danna and Michael Larger.
The Jesse Klump Memorial Scholarship Fund is a non-profit corporation whose principal fundraising event, “Jesse’s Paddle,” is held in Snow Hill on the Pocomoke River each summer. “The support from the community has been unbelievable,” commented Fund officer Ron Pilling. “No local organization gave a larger scholarship this year to a Snow Hill student than we did,” he said. “That fulfills a goal of supporting our scholars throughout their undergraduate years.”