Vince Hafeli
“When I was 45 years old, a caring phone call thankfully prevented me from taking my own life. I lived with that secret for 14 years. But once I began telling my story, my life changed.
I work in construction: a harsh, competitive, macho industry where we don’t often share our emotions. I asked myself how I could further deepen the conversation to educate others about preventing suicide. I heard about AFSP’s Out of the Darkness Walks, and asked myself, ‘What if we did a local construction walk in the Sarasota area?’ But why stop there? I asked other members of the Florida construction industry if they’d like to be involved. That quickly evolved into a statewide AFSP Construction Hike for Hope at five locations in Florida.
Now that Florida was a success, the next step in the mission was to go national. I reached out to industry friends to gauge their interest. Rob Labbe in New York told me to count him in, and he was off and running.”
