Fundraiser walk supports fallen service member’s families, advocates suicide prevention

PAW PAW, Mich. — To raise money for a Gold Star Family Memorial Monument and advocate prevention of military suicides, the American Gold Star Mothers Western Michigan chapter hosted a Walk-A-Thon Sunday.

Attendees and organizers started at the Maple City Veterans Memorial Park and and walked a 2.2 mile loop, each walker paying a $10 registration fee as a donation to the Paw Paw MI Gold Star Families Memorial Monument, a project from the Woody Williams Foundation. A silent auction fundraiser was also hosted at the event.

The Gold Star Family is a designation given to families who have lost a loved one as a result of active-duty military service, including those lost to suicide, and the title is meant to honor a family member’s sacrifice while acknowledging their “loss, grief and continued healing,” according to America’s Gold Star Families.

“Gold Star family members are pretty isolated in their communities,” Laura De Roo, president of American Gold Star Mothers Western Michigan Chapter, said. “This is a way of drawing us together and getting us to support and encourage one another and to support our veterans, which is what American Gold Star Mothers does.”

De Roo is a Gold Star mother whose son was killed while serving in Iraq on August 20th, 2006. She started the push for a Gold Star Family Memorial when she realized the closest one was six hours away in Clinton Township, according to previous coverage.

In their 2024 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) recorded 6,407 veteran suicides in 2022, an average of 17 per day and 13% of the total number of U.S. suicide deaths that year. In 2023, 523 service members died by suicide, about 30 more than the previous year, according to the U.S. Department of Defense.

“The VA is saying that 17 veterans a day are losing their life…and this is a way of letting the community know that this is a problem, and we should all be doing something about it,” De Roo said.

The Woody Williams Foundation started the Gold Star Monuments project to honor U.S. Marine Corps Chief Warrant Officer 4 Hershel “Woody” Williams who died in June 2022 and is credited as the founder of the foundation. After Woody’s monument was built in West Virginia, the foundation decided to build as many Gold Star Family monuments as they could across the country.

Each monument are two-sided and made of black granite, one side reading “Gold Star Families Memorial Monument, a tribute to Gold Star Families and Relatives who sacrificed a Loved One for our Freedom,” and the other side has four images that represent “homeland, family, patriot and sacrifice,” the four pillars of the foundation’s mission.

Once the Paw Paw monument is built, it will be located at Maple City Veterans Memorial Park.