The friends of Illinois native Deb Martin’s late son, Jared Martin, influenced her involvement in a suicide awareness and prevention organization that bears Jared’s name.
Jared’s Keepers Foundation, Inc., was founded in 2014 after Jared Michael Martin died by suicide on June 14, 2014, in Christiansted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.
Jared was 17.
Jared was born in Springfield but raised in Kingston Springs, Tennessee, where he attended school until his junior year at Harpeth High School. He loved soccer and was keeper (goalkeeper) for the Harpeth Indians, leading them to the school’s first district championship his eighth-grade year.
Today, youth are a major part of what guides the nonprofit Jared’s Keepers Foundation, Deb Martin said.
Based in Girard, the foundation started with the simple goal of saving youth, letting them know:
“You matter. You belong here. You Are A Keeper.”
“His friends actually co-founded Jared’s Keepers with my help,” said Deb Martin, the foundation’s president. “This was not my idea. This was theirs.”
Jared’s Keepers Foundation’s mission will be furthered through its largest fundraiser to date, The Healing Plate, that will take place on Saturday, Sept.12, at the Firefighters Lake Club, 940 W. Lake Shore Drive in Springfield.
The event will feature American country music singer and songwriter Rodney Atkins and a four-course dinner. Michelin Star chef Sam Jett will be the event’s chef.
The Healing Plate was born from the foundation’s Feeding Our Families weekly program in Girard and Waverly that shows students and families how to plan, prepare, serve and store healthy, inexpensive meals.
“The chefs that come in for this event get to spend time with students and answer questions, ‘How did you get into being a professional chef or a celebrity chef? How did you know that you wanted to be a chef?’” said Deb Martin, a 1991 graduate of Waverly High School. “Almost every chef will tell you that they are a chef because it helped their mental health. That’s their way of letting go of a lot of anxieties and stresses, is they just get in a kitchen and start creating.”
Suicide statistics
When Jared Martin’s friends shared with Deb Martin how much they were struggling after Jared’s death, Deb began researching, learning statistics and information.
“You never want to upset a mama, and I got mad because I kind of felt like I should have known this stuff. Somebody could have told me, as I had a teenager, that this was an issue,” Deb said.
“When the students told me about the statistics within his own class, then I really got angry because I felt, ‘Well, wasn’t it time for the school to step up or a pediatrician to tell me?’”
Jared’s class in Tennessee had about 120 students. The class lost nine parents to suicide – including Jared, who had lost his biological father to suicide. Jared was the sixth student in the school district in six years to take his life. There were over 29 attempts, as far as the students knew, in the class.
Those statistics are “normal,” Deb Martin found.
Suicide is the third-leading cause of death in 15-29-year-olds, the World Health Organization reported in 2025.
“Risk factors for suicide are multifaceted, and include harmful use of alcohol, abuse in childhood, stigma against help-seeking, barriers to accessing care and access to means of suicide,” the WHO report Mental health of adolescents stated. “Digital media, like any other media, can play a significant role in either enhancing or weakening suicide prevention efforts.”
Deb supported Jared’s friends in their efforts in suicide prevention.
“I supported (Jared’s friends) in wanting to let their peers know that they were a safe person, they were tired of losing their friends, and they wanted somebody to listen to them,” Deb said. “As an active mama in the class, I always was, so they knew that they could reach out and ask for Jared’s mom’s help.”
Keep listening
Jared’s Keepers Foundation’s goals are “to prevent suicide and strengthen communities through mental health and suicide prevention education, youth programs, crisis response, community partnerships and programs designed to create connection and hope,” its website said.
Among the foundation’s actions, in 2016 it worked with Tennessee lawmakers and other organizations to enact “Jared’s Law,” which requires K-12 public school and Local Education Association employees to complete two hours of annual training in suicide prevention and awareness.
In its third year, the foundation’s The Healing Plate fundraiser has a goal to raise about $50,000. The money will be used for the Feeding Our Families program and general support of programs such as the Keepers Clubs – which are student-led peer support in educational institutions – plus postvention (support of people after a suicide death) with families and communities.
“One of the things that has been with us since the beginning is we do send out supportive boxes to families that lose someone to suicide – a parent, a child, someone within the home,” Deb said. “It just has items in it that kind of help you get through the worst of the worse.”
Jared’s Keepers Foundation has “made a lot of progress in the last 12 years,” Deb said.
“We have been able to lift that veil of stigma quite a bit,” Deb said. “There’s a lot more to go, but I also believe that our youth is our future, and if you can educate them accurately on information and data, then they will help change the world in a positive way.”
Many of his Jared’s friends are still involved with supporting the foundation in different ways. A number of his friends have gone into the medical field. Some of them are doctors and nurses, a couple are in the psychiatric medicine field, and some of them are first responders in the emergency medical services field.
“As adults, oftentimes we like to step back and say, ‘Well, we’ll research it. We’ll check all the information out,’ and by the time we find out what (youth) need today, they’ve already moved on to having a different need,” Deb said. “We identified that very early on that we have to have youth … We have them very active as stakeholders at the table to help guide us into our next direction.
“They know what they need, so we have to listen.”
Jared’s Keepers Foundation presents The Healing Plate
It brings together food, live music and a mission of supporting suicide prevention, mental health awareness and the foundation’s work in communities.
The event will be on Saturday, Sept. 12, at the Firefighters Lake Club, 940 W. Lake Shore Drive in Springfield.
Doors will open at 5 p.m.
Tickets are $150 per person and include a four-course dinner and live entertainment from country singer Rodney Atkins.
The four-course dinner will be: BLT salad, roasted squash butter pasta, red wine–braised short rib and brown butter gooey apple cake.
For tickets, contact 615-347-3104. The deadline is Friday, Sept. 11.
For more information visit jaredskeepers.com.
This article appears in 2026 Fall Guide.
