A recent article by Marjorie Cortez discusses the work of Debbie Plotnick ’02, MSS & MLSP ’04, who Executive Vice President for State and Federal Advocacy at Mental Health America.

The article tells the story of how Plotnick teamed up with Michael Sodini, a former gun industry businessman who now runs Walk the Talk America.

Sodini concluded that the industry needed to do more to prevent firearm suicides, so he reached out to Plotnick and Mental Health America and talked to them about ideas for connecting gun owners with mental health resources.

From the article:

According to Sodini’s report of the meeting on the Walk The Talk America website, “We spent the entire day listening to representatives talk about their initiatives to increase federal funding and raise awareness of the many issues facing the mental health industry. Many of these speakers shared their personal stories of successes and failures, which was very humbling for me.”

Sodini invited Plotnick to the SHOT Show, which was new territory for her, but she agreed to go.

“So what does this person from Philadelphia do who doesn’t care about guns, who comes from an urban environment and doesn’t know anything about this? People were wonderful to me because I wanted to hear from them. I didn’t want to talk to them. I wanted to talk to them,” she said.

That was six years ago. Since then, Sodini and Plotnick have continued to work together to reduce the number of gun suicides. Most recently, they spoke at Stop Stigma Together, a three-day national summit on mental illness and substance abuse.

“Mental Health America and Walk the Talk America have partnered so that people who own firearms are not afraid to seek help when they need it,” says Plotnick. “And so that people with mental health issues and/or their caregivers are not afraid to talk about their gun ownership.”

Read more at Yahoo News