Our Story

Jeeps Against Suicide had a simple start in 2018 as a Facebook community page by Shawn and Nicole Cicero, a Jeep loving couple as a place to share their grief for a friend who died by suicide and as a place to share photos of the first event, they held to raise funds and awareness or mental health diseases.  Shawn started to work on logo designs, eventually having several they used on the Facebook page and even one they used to create and sell shirts to raise donations for mental health programs.

The Facebook page started to share Jeep photos that included words of inspiration, and the page grew and grew.  People, lots of people started following along on their journey, including Rose Bortolussi.  Rose started following the page and asking questions and before you knew it, she and Nicole hatched a plan.  With Rose’s leadership they would take this little community and make it an official Non-Profit Organization that is registered as a 501(c)3 charity. In March of 2021 they set a 5-year goal of making that happen and began to hold more events.  Then something wonderful happened on Friday April 15, 2022, they received word they registration was approved.

Creating a non-profit organization also came with the need for a Board Of Directors.  But it had to be a Board with a special focus, fully aware of the special requirements that it will take dealing with the very personal and sometimes profoundly tragic scenarios. A team that has experienced suicide from all perspectives.  They reached out to Jessica Rockey and R.C. Schmidgall and they both agreed to become an integral part of the initial Board of Directors, the Board that will determine future success and growth.