The Life’s Worth Living Foundation’s board of directors and coalition members will walk from Tooele City to Wendover this weekend.
The second annual Walk to Wendover will start at Tooele City Hall on Friday at 6 a.m. and conclude when the walkers arrive in Wendover, which is expected to be sometime Saturday afternoon, according to Jon Gossett, president of the Life’s Worth Living Foundation.
“We did it for the first time last year [Walk to Wendover] and it was a little crazy,” Gossett said. “It was a big effort, it took a lot of time and work, but people enjoyed it and want to do it again.”
The Walk to Wendover will culminate Saturday evening, when the foundation will conduct a Q.P.R. training at the Historic Wendover Airfield. Q.P.R. stands for question, persuade and refer. It is a training that teaches people how to recognize signs of suicidal thought, talk to people about suicide, and get qualified help for people who are thinking about suicide.
The public is invited to join in with the Walk to Wendover through either a local walk-a-thon or a “Walk Where You Are” effort organized by the foundation.
The foundation’s walking group will leave from City Hall following a kick-off meeting. They will walk from City Hall, down Tooele City’s Main Street to 1000 North where they will head to state Route 112.
They will walk along SR-112 to state Route 138, where they will head into Grantsville and follow SR-138 to Interstate 80. At I-80 Exit 84, the foundation walkers will board a bus and ride to Delle were they will get off the bus and continue walking toward Clive on the I-80 frontage road.
At some point on Friday night the walkers will stop and board the bus and return to Tooele. On Saturday morning the bus will deliver the walkers to the point where they stopped on Friday night and the group will continue their march to Wendover.
On Friday the foundation’s walkers will be joined by soldiers from Dugway Proving Ground who will walk 22 miles to honor the roughly 22 veterans across the country who die by suicide each day.
The Life’s Worth Living Foundation is a Tooele County-based non-profit organization that provides suicide awareness, education and training.
The purpose of the Walk to Wendover is to raise public awareness of suicide, the foundation’s programs, and to more than symbolically bring suicide education to all communities in Tooele County. Donations raised from the Walk to Wendover will be used to further the foundation’s mission, Gossett said.
In addition to the Walk to Wendover, in cooperation with the Tooele County School District’s Hope Squads, the foundation is sponsoring a Walk to Wendover Walk-A-Thon on April 22 on the Tooele County Midvalley Trail.
Participants in the Walk-A-Thon will meet at 11 a.m. on Saturday at the trailhead located at approximately 700 West Rogers Lane in Tooele City. They will walk at their own pace to Sheep Lane and return to Rogers Lane, a distance of seven miles.
Walkers who can’t make it to the Midvalley Trail can join with the Walk to Wendover through a “Walk Where You Are,” according to Gossett.
Walk Where You Are participants can register with Life’s Worth Living to walk and collect pledges, Gossett said.
Both Walk to Wendover Walk-A-Thon and Walk Where You Are participants can find more information about the walk and link for registration on the Life’s Worth Living Foundation’s website at lifesworthliving.org. Click on events from the menu bar and then click on the walk-a-thon on the calendar.
Registration for the walk-a-thon has grown from 48 in 2017 to 116 for 2018 as of Wednesday. Non-registered participants are welcome to join the walk-a-thon on the Midvalley Trail on Saturday morning, according to Gossett.