Manchester, N.H. — The United States is facing a suicide crisis. Suicides have increased 33 percent since 1999 and are the second leading cause of death for people ages 10-34. In New Hampshire, where The LMC Groups’ headquarters is located, the youth suicide rate is 50 percent more than the national average.
Dawson Rutter of Commonwealth Worldwide Executive Transportation (left) with his son Dawson A. Rutter III—more affectionately known as D.A. After D.A. took his own life in 2017, Rutter established a scholarship fund in his son’s memory.
The crisis motivated LMC to choose the Dawson A. Rutter, III Scholarship Fund for its annual #GivingTuesday fundraiser. Dawson (known as D.A.), the 23-year-old son of Commonwealth Worldwide Executive Transportation’s Dawson Rutter, tragically took his life in 2017 after a long struggle with depression. D.A.’s father, Dawson Rutter, established the scholarship fund, which helps meet the financial needs of boys at The Fenn School in Concord, Mass., where D.A. spent his happiest years.
D.A. was an accomplished artist who won awards for his art at Fenn and beyond, so LMC decided to host an online art auction to raise money for the fund. Starting on December 3—#GivingTuesday—and ending on Friday, December 13, the auction will be accessible through The LMC Groups’ Facebook page, and all proceeds will be donated to the fund.
LMC Founder and CEO Kristen Carroll and LMC Ops Director Chris Hotham are acclaimed artists whose work is featured in several galleries nationwide, and they have donated the paintings and photographs for the auction. Carroll explained why LMC chose to support this charity:
As a business leader, I make it a point to speak publicly about my involvement in ongoing therapy as part of my personal wellness. Behavioral and mental health are as central to our overall vitality as is our physical health, yet even as we approach 2020, there is a stigma associated with mental health. Nearly all Americans will either experience depression in their lifetime or have someone close to them impacted. While suicide is a statistical rarity in the sea of depression, one suicide is too many.
As an organization that embraces health, transparency, and the dogged pursuit of joy, we want to shine a light on a struggle that so many face. We selected this fund for #GivingTuesday because we knew and loved Dawson Rutter III and know and love his father. We have team members and families who have been touched by suicide. We want to bring this struggle out of the darkness and into the light, so that conversations happen earlier, help is sought more often, and those we’ve lost are remembered for their lives and not for their deaths.
Anyone interested in supporting LMC’s #GivingTuesday fundraiser can access the auction on Facebook.
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