Cory Richez points Tuesday to the side of the Suicide Awareness Bus, where people have written the names of their loved ones who died by suicide. Any glitter on the bus is where ashes were painted onto the vehicle.
Bridgette Fox/Journal-Courier
A bus masquerading as a train is traveling through town, offering people a place to honor loved ones who have died by suicide, survived suicide attempts or struggled with suicidal thoughts.
The Suicide Awareness Bus & Spirit House has brought its third bus to Jacksonville after a large number of families from the area requested the visit after an accidental last-minute visit last year.
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The bus will be at Lake Jacksonville through Thursday morning.
A note written to someone’s father is displayed inside the Suicide Awareness Bus.
Bridgette Fox/Journal-Courier
Husband-and-wife duo Cory Richez and Kelly Logan travel the country in the bus, meeting with families and providing materials about mental health and addiction, as well as Narcan kits. They have traveled this way for the past five years with the goal of reaching people and providing a safe place to talk about mental health struggles and grief.
Richez said members of their Facebook community voted on the bus’s new concept, a steampunk train. Logan has continued to bring the concept to life, painting the background design before family members place the names of loved ones on the bus.
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“We hit the road about four months ago,” Richez said. “We only started putting on names about six weeks ago and we have a couple hundred names already. I estimate about 20 percent are people who come and have had previous attempts or hardships. It’s a place they can offload the weight of grief.”
The Suicide Awareness Bus & Spirit House is a nonprofit that travels the country. Often described as a mobile graveyard, the bus is meant to show how many people are affected by suicide and mental illness.
Kelly Logan paints the side of the Suicide Awareness Bus on Tuesday.
Bridgette Fox/Journal-Courier
After losing loved ones and battling their own addiction and mental health issues, Richez and Logan wanted to create something positive from their grief, share their stories and history and provide a safe space for those who need one, they said.
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Every item, name and picture on or in the bus represents someone who has died or someone affected by the death of a loved one.
The new bus carries the ashes of about 20 people and from 60 to 70 photographs and obituaries that will continue to travel with the couple across the country.
A table outside the Suicide Awareness Bus is filled with free items for those visiting the bus.
Bridgette Fox/Journal-Courier
This is the second year the bus has visited Jacksonville. The couple stopped last year to rest and recover from the heat.
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During that time, many people stopped to visit with them and add to the bus
“We want to be a place people can go to process grief and talk about mental health,” Richez said. “We want to address mental health without the stigma.”
The museum inside the Suicide Awareness Bus holds small memorials to people who have died by suicide.
Bridgette Fox/Journal-Courier
This year’s stop was planned.
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“We always say that the spirits guide us,” Richez said. “When we announced we’d be going through Jacksonville, we had more people from Jacksonville reaching out than anywhere else. We felt we needed to stop here again.”
At every stop, Richez said, they grow their family. It is not a family made by genetics, but by grief.
“Our family keeps growing through grief every year,” Richez said.