Dear Editor,

Following the recent death of our friend Luke Hammond, we formed a group to promote suicide awareness and highlight the services and supports available to address this issue. The name of our group is LUKES TEAM, which stands for ‘Let Us Keep Everyone Safe Through Every Anxious Moment’.

To help us achieve our aim, we organised a suicide awareness walk which took place on Sunday, December 1st. As well as awareness, this walk raised a total of €650 in sponsorship and, through the pages of The Avondhu, we would like to publically acknowledge and thank all those individuals and businesses that supported this event. We would also like to thank Kieran Cotter of C&C Gleeson for supplying bottled water for the walk.

We are currently evaluating how this sum can be best utilised within our community to address the issue of suicide and the results of this process will be made public through your paper in the very near future.

On behalf of LUKES TEAM.

Thank you,

Martina Carroll and Rebecca Macken,

c/o Mitchelstown Youth Cafe.