Matthew Silverman Memorial Foundation
The Matthew Silverman Memorial Foundation was founded in 2013 in memory of Matthew, who took his own life in January 2006. He was a compassionate and intelligent young man with limitless potential that chose a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Unfortunately, this choice is all too common amongst our youth in today's climate. The rate of suicide among persons 10-24 has increased by 56% between 2007-2017, affecting young adults regardless of race, religion, gender and socio-economical background. Experiencing the hardship that came with the lose of our founder’s son, he was motivated to find meaning and purpose after Matt’s passing. Ron Silverman wanted to reduce the possibility that any family has to go through the pain that he has gone through. With that hope, the birth of the Matthew Silverman Memorial Foundation (MSMF) was formed with the main goal opening the dialogue on mental health between youth, parents and educators.
Our foundation is a nonprofit public charity strives to backdown the stigmatism that surrounds mental health, primarily focusing on our youth. We provide financial and programmatic support as wells mental health program for teens, young adults, teacher and parents throughout the country. We covered over 99% of the expenses for programming, which can cost up to $10,000.00 per school, per year. Since the inception of our school programming in 2015 we have presented in over 150 institutions and 319 programs in elementary, middle, high schools, colleges and community centers across the United States. We have now reached over 360,000 students, parents and faculty but we need to do more.
Below you will find a list of some of the programs that we offer:
- Parent Training
- Faculty Training
- Student Curriculum
- School Clubs
- Campaigns
- Community Events
- Signs of Suicide Program
- Student Assemblies with speakers that discuss a range of mental health issues (i.e. Anxiety, Depression, Bipolar, OCD ect). The topic are curtailed to whatever you choose