A capital campaign underway to help save lives

Can you afford to save lives? Pikuach nefesh is the principle in Jewish law that the preservation of human life overrides all other religious rules. Human life is sacred to all the world’s religions, and the vision for The Human Rights Museum in Canandaigua will have the world’s first “Suicide Prevention” gallery that will save thousands of lives.

Suicide isn’t always about dying, it may be about perceived relief. People consider suicide to end emotional or physical pain they are experiencing or resolve stressful life experiences. Keys to help loved ones is to remind them that suicide is a permanent solution to persistent challenges, there are many alternatives to alleviate the suffering they are experiencing, and you are there to support them.

The Human Rights Museum will provide a sense of community and place to celebrate our collective heritage, offering a great way for the world to know our region’s particular history. Along with our local freedom fighters: Susan B. Anthony (1845), Frederick Douglass (1847), Harriet Tubman (1859) and the world’s first Women’s Rights Convention (1848) the museum celebrates Anthony’s trial here in Canandaigua in 1873, which galvanized the suffrage movement that all other equality movements followed, making our region the world’s front lawn for human rights.

Our children’s museum will have the world's first Stop Bullying and Suicide Prevention galleries, which will save lives. Our region is perfect for this museum because the Canandaigua VA has the first Crisis Hotline to prevent our veterans from committing suicide, saving many lives, and our region was the inspiration for the classic 1948 "It’s a Wonderful Life" film, which the American Film Institute named the most inspirational film, and its message is “every life has meaning.”

Museums help to build a collective identity by encouraging reflection on shared values, common heritage and social connectedness, and providing public spaces for leisure. Our heritage museum will attract the most educated and affluent visitors worldwide to our community and provide tangible economic benefit to our community and create about 50 new jobs with our capital campaign goal of $2,760,000.

Today museums are changing from static, monolithic, and encyclopedic institutions to spaces that are visitor-centric, with shared authority that will allow our visitors to become co-creators in content creation in immersive environments and virtual experiences to the public to increase engagement and revenue.

There are 800,000 deaths by suicide annually and it is the leading cause of death for youth (10-22), and it is preventable. Red flags are being missed by caretakers at home, friends and schools. Our museum will engage with students on field trips with solutions. And our museum’s online platform will reach millions of children worldwide, parents, and educators with information and tools to understand that it gets better. If every child 10+ years old had to answer a series of questions on an iPad annually to check their mental health, we would save ten of thousands of children.

Tom Crane is a local businessman with a vision for The Human Rights Museum that came about giving tours of our region’s local human rights rich history and his passion for preventing suicide with his 2015 short film titled "It Gets Better" shot in Seneca Falls about the 1948 classic film "It’s a Wonderful Life." Tom has worked with Angelicia Smith for many years and last years she lost her amazing son, Giovanni Bourne, who died by suicide. Together our goal is to prevent youth suicide, promote mental health awareness, and create a message of hope for pre-teens, teens, and young adults within the museum.

Canandaigua National Bank & Trust has a Finger Lakes Area Community Endowment (FLACE) account for The Human Rights Museum for tax deductible donations on its website at cnbank.com, or mail your donation to The Human Rights Museum, 113 Eastern Blvd., Canandaigua, NY 14424. Thank you for helping us save tens of thousands of lives. Tomorrow needs them.

Tom Crane is a Canandaigua resident.

This article originally appeared on MPNnow: A capital campaign underway to help save lives