Just Live partners with Marquette University

Just Live, Inc. representatives contributed $40,000 to Marquette University for depression/suicide research. From left: Board members Brian Wood, Janet Geller-Lesko, Mike Roth of Labor of Love Music Festival, Dr. William Cullinan of Marquette, Board members Betty Wood, Bob Riley, Kelly Wilson, Julie Seegers, Eileen Mullins, Claire Connolly, Kathleen Mullins and Just Live, Inc. President Mark Mullins (Submitted Photo).
Just Live, Inc. representatives contributed $40,000 to Marquette University for depression/suicide research. From left: Board members Brian Wood, Janet Geller-Lesko, Mike Roth of Labor of Love Music Festival, Dr. William Cullinan of Marquette, Board members Betty Wood, Bob Riley, Kelly Wilson, Julie Seegers, Eileen Mullins, Claire Connolly, Kathleen Mullins and Just Live, Inc. President Mark Mullins (Submitted Photo).

Effort hopes to improve understanding of suicide

By Jason Arndt
Staff Writer

Since Just Live, Inc. was launched in 2012, the Wheatland-based nonprofit organization has been on a mission to raise awareness of mental illness and fund suicide prevention programs. But it never dedicated funds towards clinical research.

That all changed on Dec. 2 at Marquette University, where Just Live, Inc. board members made a $40,000 donation to the school’s Integrative Neuroscience Research Center, headed by Dr. William Cullinan, Dean of the College of Health Sciences.

“Donating funds to this area is a first for Just Live, Inc.,” said organization board member Janet Geller-Lesko. “We have never dedicated funds towards research, as we tended to fund already established programs with promote mental health and suicide awareness.”

Dr. William Cullinan
Dr. William Cullinan

Just Live Inc. was created in memory of Jamie Leigh Wilson, who took her own life in 2009, and three years later, launched the Labor of Love Music Festival to raise funds for suicide prevention programs.

Previously, Just Live, Inc. has contributed to Hopeline, a free text-messaging service presented by The Center for Suicide Awareness aimed towards teens and young adults who have difficulty asking for help.

On the same day, however, the organization made a $15,000 contribution to Hopeline, and according to Just Live, Inc. board member Bob Riley, the service has helped at least 30,000 people last year.

“They had 31,000 hits last year throughout three counties,” said Riley, who notes each text message exchange lasted an average of three hours.

Another supportive outlet, among other organizations, is Question, Persuade and Refer, a free suicide prevention program anyone can take with hopes of saving someone from suicide.

According to Geller-Lesko, the donation to Marquette University puts a focus on the biological aspect with hopes of finding the clinical cause of mental illness and suicide.

“Ultimately, our hope is that Marquette’s research team will be able to discover exactly what physiologically causes mental illnesses, and then further the research to develop completely curative pharmaceutical responses beyond that which exist,” Geller-Lesko said.

Geller-Lesko reports Just Live, Inc. expressed an interest in donating toward clinical research when President Mark Mullin received information about Cullinan’s research laboratory at Marquette University.

“The way we found him was that the brother of Just Live, Inc.’s President, Mark Mullins, passed Marquette publication,” she said. “In the publication was an article about a family who donated funds to set up a program with Dr. Cullinan and his team.”

Cullinan’s laboratory has received funds from the National Institute on Mental Health and the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, whose primary focus is on brain activity in mental illness.

Through his research, Cullinan has authored numerous articles and chapters on functional neuroanatomy and neuroendocrinology.

According to Cullinan, his team plans to use the funds to start pilot programs on campus.

“The funds will be divided into five smaller pilot programs,” he said. “It is aimed at trying to understand various aspects of depressive illness.”

“The ultimate goal is to generate data that will ultimately lead to translation into medications that work faster and more effectively to treat depression and other neuropsychiatric illnesses,” Cullinan added.

The new partnership, Geller-Lesko said, gives the nonprofit a reason for optimism as they plan for their next Labor of Love Music Festival on Sept. 4, 2017.

“We have what we believe to be the winning formula. Now, with Marquette on our team, we hope to raise even more money so that next year, we can more generously fund the Marquette team and other organizations,” she said.

Since 2009, the number of people who have succumbed to suicide or attempted suicide is on the rise, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

The CDC reports 41,000 suicide deaths occurred in 2013, up from 38,000 in a similar study in 2010.

For additional information on Just Live, Inc., visit www.justliveinc.org


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