Brooke DiPalma ‘18 Continues to Raise Awareness for Suicide Prevention

When one of your parents drops you off at school, the last thing you expect is the news of their passing just hours later. Brooke DiPalma ‘18 had no idea that an exchange of “I love you… I love you,” would be the last interaction she would have with her father.

On April 23, 2010, Joseph DiPalma dropped his daughter off at school and just hours later took his own life. A former member of the NYPD and a loving father, he had retired from the police force early in 2001, many months before the events of 9/11. “He was retired but had many friends that were still working through 9/11 and I think he regretted not being there alongside everyone,” she said. “There’s a macho male culture in the police force that is not really talked about.”

DiPalma recently posted her story on HuffPost this past September. “I wonder if these officers, like my father, were too good at holding their raw emotions inside,” she wrote. This is citing a statistic of police officer suicides from the past few years. 

“Across the United States, there have been at least 122 law enforcement suicides, including retired officers,” her post reads. “That’s on course to pass last year’s total.”

However, through her story and the stories of others, came something beautiful.

Seven months after this personal tragedy, DiPalma created P.S. I Love You Day. “On this day we ask everyone to wear purple to stand up against bullying, help end depression, and ultimately prevent suicide,” DiPalma wrote on HuffPost. 

Ending the stigma behind these categories is one of the most important things, according to DiPalma.

“Something that helped me get this started was the people around me,'' DiPalma said, “They really motivated me to go forward with it.”

P.S. I Love You Day is held on the second Friday of February each year. In 2020, it will land on February 14, which happens to be Valentine’s Day. This year’s goal is to have over 70,000 people and 200 schools wearing purple.

“We encourage communities to wear purple in order to foster kindness and a welcoming environment and educate others that mental health is just as important as physical health,'' the website reads.

Marist College is just one among hundreds of schools that participate in this event. “One of the biggest challenges is getting all the schools to participate… the goal is reaching at least two hundred schools,” DiPalma said.

While talking about the inception of P.S. I Love You Day, she mentioned a conversation she had with a school administrator. “Personally, when I created P.S. I Love You Day, my principal came up to me saying that I was meant to create it regardless of what happened.”

What started as an idea sparked from tragedy blossomed into an event with immense outreach across campuses and in other communities.

A beloved member of the Marist community, DiPalma is a former For the Record recipient. She graduated from Marist in 2018 and currently lives in New York City working as an associate producer at Yahoo Finance. She was also a member of the sorority Tri Sigma and a strong advocate in the mental health community during her time at Marist.

During her time as a student, she introduced P.S. I Love You Day to the school alongside her sorority sisters in Tri Sigma and many on campus organizations. 

“People need to understand that it’s okay to go talk to someone,'' DiPalma said. “I want to make sure that people are okay when the conversation comes up.”