For Bayfield resident and alternative/indie musician Garrett Young, the topic of suicide hits close to home.
“It’s the fifth time in my life that people close to us have taken their lives,” the 24-year-old said. “It’s got to stop, essentially.”
As a way to help, Young is donating money from sales of his debut album, “The Garrett Young Collective,” to the Grief Center of Southwest Colorado. Initially, he was donating 20 percent of album profits to the center, but a recent suicide motivated him to do more – he’s donating 100 percent.
The Grief Center offers a wide variety of support for those experiencing grief in their life, including individual and group therapy, support groups and community resources on grief, loss and trauma-informed care.
The center also has bereavement specialists available.
“They’re really great people, and I found out about them from the last time we went through something like this,” Young said. “They’re grief counselors, and they go on site and they’re amazing people. They help the families cope.”
Young said he will continue to donate the profits “for as long as I feel like I’ve made a good chunk of money I can give to them.”
He said so far, the campaign has been successful, and that the majority of CD sales have come from his live performances.
“At the gigs, I mentioned that I was doing that, and I had a bunch of people come up and buy CDs,” he said. “They were giving 20 bucks instead of 10 bucks, and it was really amazing.”
For Young, it’s all about raising awareness of a problem that only seems to be growing in frequency.
“It’s one of the hardest things in the world to understand because you look at some of the really successful people that have taken their own lives and you compare that to (an 11-year-old) – what are the common denominators between an 11-year-old and Chris Cornell? It’s so hard to really know,” he said. “More than anything, I just want awareness and prevention and to somehow make people feel like (they’re) not alone.”
katie@durangoherald.com
On the Net
To buy a signed copy of “The Garrett Young Collective” CD, visit
https://bit.ly/2KWTERr
. One hundred percent of profits will be donated to
Grief Center of Southwest Colorado
.
If you go
You can catch Garrett Young on these dates:
Saturday: 8 p.m., Wild Horse Saloon, 601 East Second Ave. (with Wild Country).
Aug. 4, 1 p.m., Bayfield Brew Fest.
Aug. 4, 5 p.m., Balcony Bar and Grill, 600 Main Ave.
Aug. 10, Tumbleroot Brewery & Distillery, 2791 Agua Fria St., Santa Fe.
Aug. 11, Giant Skillet, 619 12th St., Las Vegas, New Mexico.
Sept. 14th/15, Wild Horse saloon, 601 East Second Ave. (with Wild Country).
