April 9, 2015 – Paramus, NJ – The CarePlus Foundation is proud to recognize the Sefcik family at the 17th Annual Courage Awards Gala being held on June 3, 2015 at the Venetian in Garfield, NJ. The family is being honored for their community education on youth mental health and suicide prevention.
“Remembering T.J. – A Story of Teen Depression, Lessons and Hope” is a program that the family has been presenting, fueled by the painful lessons that they learned after their son T.J. died by suicide in 2010. Since then, the Sefcik family has been actively battling the stigma against mental illness by encouraging students, educators, parents, and community members alike to start the conversation and become educated on the important public health concerns surrounding mental health and suicide prevention.
“The Sefcik family has taken a private and personal experience, and created a public education forum to promote prevention, mental health recovery and resiliency,” stated Jamisin Saracino, Director of Client Advocacy and Community Education at CarePlus. “They truly embody what the Courage Awards Gala represents.”
The CarePlus Foundation’s largest fundraiser of the year will celebrate courage, hope, and happiness by honoring those who work tirelessly, like the Sefcik family, on behalf of individuals and families facing the daily and life-long challenges of mental illness and substance abuse. The event also helps to raise the much-needed funds for those very same individuals and families
This year’s honorees also include John Cosgrove, Mayor of Fair Lawn and supporter of the Fair Lawn Stigma-Free Zone initiative; and Kenneth Ehrenberg, the Chief of the Paramus Police Department and collaborative leader in crisis de-escalation and mental health awareness. The CarePlus Foundation will also award Dr. Dina Vaynberg with the Compassionate Care Award for her work at CarePlus, representing the best in the field of mental health care. In addition to the honorees, the event will recognize the recipients of the 2015 Bernard Dubnick Scholarship.
The Courage Awards Gala includes a cocktail hour, dinner, live and silent auctions, 50/50, raffle and more. The event attracts attendees from across the state, including representatives and supporters from the Northern New Jersey business community. Individual tickets are available for $150 each, with full tables of 10 offered for $1,400.
The Foundation is currently welcoming dinner guests, sponsors, and auction donations. For more information, click here or call 201-986-5070.
CarePlus NJ, INC. is dedicated to excellence in mental healthcare and has a commitment to life-long support needed by individuals and their families to ensure that they achieve their full potential and improve the quality of their lives.
