My son Jarrad Joseph Grainger born 2nd July 1994 sadly took his own life on 6th September 2015 aged 21 years old.

Our world fell apart on this day. We had no money set aside so wasn’t sure how we would afford a funeral for him, luckily our friends and family came together and donated their money so we could give him the fantastic send off that he deserved.

The day I lost him will be a day I will never forget. It took me 2 years to finally admit that I will never be the person I was before but I was determined my son’s name and memory would always live on.

This is when The Jarrad Foundation was born, I started this foundation in September 2017. The Jarrad Foundation helps families with costs towards their loved ones funerals through suicide, we raise money throughout the year then we donate some of this money to the families.

So far we have done Christmas parties, table top stalls at St Stephens, Rayners and Sainsbury’s, we are currently awaiting other supermarkets to get back in touch with us. We have also done Humber bridge walks, ribbon toeing events with a 50p donation and skydives. Our latest challenge was Lennox Green walking alone from Liverpool back home to Hull in memory of Jarrad, “his friend and his brother from another mother” raising a staggering amount of £…. Future events we have coming up is a Fun Day in August, a boxing match in March, a Skydive including 20 people so far and many more events to come.

We are a Foundation at the moment so we really do rely on donations. In the future we are hoping to become a charity and eventually get a small shop for people to pop in and share their stories and have a chat, I believe that’s what we are missing these days, we don’t talk like we used to anymore and that’s why so many people are ashamed or afraid to talk about suicide.