The Legend – Dale & Ash’s Story
February 11, 2015… The day our world was changed forever.
The loss of my older, and only brother, to suicide was absolutely devastating and shocking to myself, my family, and anyone that knew him for the great man he was! After losing Dallas, we decided we could either sit and mourn, or even feel sorry for ourselves, or we could get up, and go out and do SOMETHING. We chose the latter, for us, it was a no brainer.
Dallas was an avid, and competitive golfer, and was truly at peace on the golf course. Hosting a memorial golf tournament aimed at raising funds as well as awareness seemed like a perfect fit!
At Full Circle Foundation for Wellness our mission for The Legend: Dallas Williams Memorial Golf Tournament is simple: to remember and honour Dallas and others who have lost their lives to suicide, as well as give support to the friends and family who love them. We also strive to promote awareness about mental health & suicide prevention, by educating others about the importance of mental health and removing stigma about mental illness. We feel that just getting people talking is key; and truly talking to each other, especially if someone is struggling! It’s sad and unfortunate that many people, myself included prior to losing Dallas, won’t talk about, or even think about suicide, until it is too late. With over 500 Albertans dying by suicide every year, the need to get people opening up, and reaching out, in regards to mental illness, and suicide is crucial. Something needs to be done before it’s too late. Our piece of that ‘something’ is The Legend.
The event will be hosted on July 15, 2017 at the Brooks Golf Club. The tournament is a 144 player scramble, a fun tournament with a competitive edge, just like Dallas! It’s a relaxing day of fun in the sun (hopefully!), which is filled to the brim with hope, and positive energy. It brings family, friends, acquaintances, and the community together, to try to make a great thing from a terrible tragedy.
There will be many opportunities for attendees to increase their knowledge about, as well as support our extremely deserving beneficiaries: CMHA Calgary’s Survivors of Suicide Loss Day and Grasslands School Wellness Team, a local mental health capacity building project operating in the public school system in the City of Brooks. Another exciting addition this year will be the opportunity to hear our speaker, Andrew Jensen, Canadian pro-golfer and mental health advocate. After his third suicide attempt, Jensen has decided to use his platform to speak out about his experience living with depression while chasing his dream.
Utilizing the value of his lived experience, Jensen’s aim is to demystify the stigma surrounding mental illness using golf as the catalyst. He will be speaking and joining us for a day of golf! His presence and impact on breaking down the stigma surrounding mental health and suicide will be immeasurable!
We want to help so that this doesn’t happen to others. We truly don’t want anybody to ever have to go through what we did. In the last two years, we strongly feel that we have helped people. In fact, we know we have. There is no better feeling than knowing that maybe you helped save someone else from this devastation. We have no doubt that this year’s tournament will be another huge success! As long as we are getting people to talk, helping them to understand that it’s ok to not be ok, and to reach out if they are struggling, that’s success in our books!
~Dale & Ash Williams
Our Peer Support program services can be accessed over the phone at 403-297-1402 or through email at peer@cmha.calgary.ab.ca.