Sayville focuses on youthful suicides

A recent rash of youthful suicides in Sayville has led some local religious leaders to form a group dedicated to helping young adults, with a community center high on their agenda.

The group also wants to lift the veil of silence that typically cloaks suicide.

The group's founder, the Rev. Farrell Graves of St. Ann's Episcopal Church, said he didn't hear of the deaths until community members started pulling him aside one by one.

The suicides were "kind of hidden in this community," said Graves, who late last year gathered Sayville clergy and residents for a discussion about the trend. "The only reason I found out is because parishioners were coming up to me and saying, 'Something happened.' "

Between September and November 2011, three young adults took their lives, said Sayville High School social worker Betsy Quinlan. Another died of a drug overdose. All were males, and all were Sayville High School graduates.

"I wish I had the answer, because I could certainly start addressing it while they're in high school," Quinlan said. "But students who leave with no plans for the future and no support, no guidance, no mentors -- they flounder once they go."

Graves' group began looking for answers. They brainstormed reasons for what they saw as local youths' lack of connectedness and tried to find solutions.

"It's a really tough time to be a young adult," said Pastor J. Gary Brinn of the Sayville United Congregational Church of Christ. "If they don't get into Ivy League schools and don't go work at Goldman Sachs, no one wants to know about them."

An idea was born from the discussions: open a secular youth center where 20-somethings could network, get help finding a job and work on transitioning to adulthood. Now, Graves and company hope to get feedback from Sayville youth in a meeting tonight, led by local psychotherapist Will Donovan.

Donovan said he wants to hear from young adults about what it's like to live in this area of Long Island and what their needs are.

"I believe there's something that's going on here that needs to be addressed," said Donovan, who has a 19-year-old son. "I think that young people aren't sure where to go when they're facing dark feelings or confusing feelings."

The results of tonight's discussion will direct the group's meeting next week, when they hope to start piecing together a proposal that identifies the center's focus.

"They need some sort of program and activity that will help them move toward a career and move toward adult maturity," Brinn said, "and that's not happening for them."

And by publicly responding to the needs of young adults, the group hopes to shed light on what's become a problem in the relatively affluent hamlet.

"It may be the suicides that got us started, but we've moved beyond that now," Graves said. "We're trying to improve the lives of people in their 20s and support them."