Worthington's Andrea Nadolny raises awareness of suicide after a friend's tragic death

Andrea Nadolny was struggling to find a project for her Girl Scout Gold Award, the organization’s highest-level service project. “I wanted it to be something I was passionate about,” she said. “I wanted to push myself.”

She was 14 when she first started thinking about her project, but she already was comfortable pushing herself to take on new challenges. During her years at Thomas Worthington High School, Nadolny would become involved in the school’s theater program, band, Latin club, student council and varsity trivia team, in addition to Girl Scouts.

Then, her world was shattered by tragedy: a good friend died by suicide. He was one of the 40,000-plus people in the United States who die by suicide annually, numbers that have been on the rise the past few years.

“It’s still not easy to talk about,” said Nadolny, who was 16 at the time of her friend’s suicide. She is now 18 and a recent Thomas Worthington graduate. “You never get over the grieving process, and you never get over someone’s death.”

The tragedy led to action. Nadolny had found the topic for her Gold Award project. “I wanted to share my story,” she said. “I wanted to help others going through the same thing.”

She immediately went online to research the information already available for high school students. “What I found was overwhelming,” she said. “It was a lot of numbers and statistics about suicide that weren’t really accessible or very helpful.”

So, for her Gold Award project, Nadolny decided to create You Are Not Alone, an infographic designed for teenagers grappling with thoughts of suicide or dealing with the loss of a friend. “I wanted to connect with other people, to let them know they weren’t alone,” she said. “I wanted to provide resources that were easy to find and understand, for it to be more of a conversation starter to create the kind of dialogue I think was missing.”

The infographic includes sections on recognizing suicidal behavior, how to support those left behind, resources for grieving, how to create and join conversations and how to promote mental health in your community.

Nadolny emailed You Are Not Alone to local organizations connected to suicide prevention and education. It was the equivalent of a cold call. A lot of cold calls. “I contacted over 500 mental health agencies and got a lot of no's,” she said. “I did get a few yeses, places that said they’d use my infographics.”

One of the yeses came from Darcy Haag Granello, director of the Ohio State University Prevention Program. “She sent this extraordinarily well-done infographic,” said Granello, who has incorporated You Are Not Alone into the adolescent suicide prevention lecture she has delivered over the past few years at international conferences, including the International Congress on Psychiatry Conference in Guilin, China, in June 2021. Thousands of people in the field are now familiar with and have access to Nadolny’s infographic. Granello will include sections from the infographic in a book she is writing about the suicide prevention in schools.

“We talk about the pillars of a comprehensive suicide prevention program, and one of them is students doing peer-to-peer education, which is really hard to do,” Granello said. “It has to be well done, and it’s dangerous if it’s not, and this is an example of it done extraordinarily well. … Andrea is clearly going places and has already made a big difference in the world.”

Other organizations using the You Are Not Alone infographic include ADAMH Board of Franklin County, LifeAct Ohio, Columbus City Schools, Worthington Schools, Alabama Department of Mental Health and Florida Department of Children and Families.

Nadolny was a presenter at an international webinar, Awesome Girls: Tackling Global Public Health Challenges, sponsored by the Girl Scouts and Johnson & Johnson in October 2021. She partnered with the Ohio PTA to work to destigmatize mental health issues, writing an article, “Mental Health in the Eyes of a Student,” that was sent to 54,000 parent and teacher subscribers. Nadolny was a featured speaker at the Ohio PTA Town Hall Meeting that addressed mental health issues.

Creating murals was another aspect of Nadolny’s project, and the goal was to display them in Worthington. Lisa Fuller, Worthington Libraries’ director of community engagement, heard about the project. “I was a little skeptical at first, about putting the murals in the library,” she said. “But, once I met Andrea and saw what she proposed and her passion, I didn’t have any more doubts.”

The idea for the mural, which features the words “You Are Not Alone,” was to ask members of the community to contribute their handprints, dipped in different paint colors, to fill the large mural. “That was an amazing experience,” Nadolny said. “I met so many people who shared their stories, and that impacted me and helped me with my own grieving process. To hear your neighbors say they went through something similar makes you feel so connected.”

The mural remains hanging in the Old Worthington Library, and there are no plans to take it down.

Fuller sees big things ahead for Nadolny, joking that “someday I’ll be working for her. … She’s one of those rare individuals who, at a young age, has a clear idea of what she wants and sees a path to get there. And once she takes on something she’s passionate about, she works hard to make things happen.”

The recent implementation of the national 988 suicide hotline was great news for Nadolny. “This makes getting help from mental health professionals even more accessible and easy to remember in times of crisis,” she said.

Nadolny has also been making things happen academically. She will enroll at Ohio State University in the fall, with plans to double major in international relations and diplomacy and Italian studies. Because she took several college-level classes while in high school, she begins her OSU career as a sophomore, in terms of credits. Nadolny will also continue put in a lot of hours as an advocacy assistant with the Ohio Animal Advocacy, another of her many passions.

Creating You Are Not Alone helped Nadolny learn how to connect with people, and it has also helped shape her vision for her future. “I want to go into diplomacy and be a foreign service officer and eventually be a U.S. ambassador,” she said. “I want to help foster peace and create better relationships and help people come together. What I learned from this project was, if you’re passionate and an advocate, even if you’re 16 or 18, you can really do some good for the world.”

About Andrea Nadolny

What neighborhood or town do you live in?The Colonial Hills section of Worthington

What is a challenge you have overcome?The hardest thing I’ve gone through is the pandemic and trying to maintain a sense of normalcy as a teenager. (I didn't have) a lot of normal teenage experiences ... but by creating my project I was able to put my energy into something that made me feel good. My project made me feel like I wasn’t alone.

What inspires you?My parents (Jodi and Dave) and their hard work and their work ethic. They’re the hardest working people I’ve ever met, and they’ve always supported me and taught me I can do anything I set my mind to.

What keeps you engaged?Learning about the world, in the sense that I love to connect with people and learn their stories. That motivates me to create a deeper sense of empathy and a connection. And that really relates to my major (international relations and diplomacy at Ohio State).

More information

If you or someone you know is experiencing a behavioral health crisis, you can reach Ohio’s 24/7 Crisis Text Line by texting 4HOPE to 741741, or call the Franklin County Suicide Prevention Hotline at 614-221-5445; the Teen Suicide Prevention Hotline at 614-294-3300; or the national Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Andrea Nadolny's infographic educates about suicide