- From front page
The Junee Licorice and Chocolate Factory is rallying the rest of the town around a viral campaign which supports open conversations around suicide and mental health.
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The #ItsOkayToTalk campaign encourages men to share a selfie featuring an okay hand signal, alongside Australian suicide statistics to raise awareness of the issue.
The posts generally then encourage five friends to do the same and make a donation to a mental health charity.
Factory employee Rhiannon Druce came across the campaign in its infancy and quickly jumped on board, sharing a post on the company’s Facebook page which soon attracted 250,000 views.
“We have quite a lot of Facebook followers and just thought we could do something to help,” Ms Druce said.
“Ours really went crazy support which was great.”
The local company pledged to donate 50 cents for every like its post received on the night it was uploaded.
After about 4000 likes came flooding in straight away, the factory swiftly donated $2000 to the cause and busily encouraged other Junee businesses to support the campaign.
Knights Meat and Deli, a long time supporter of mental health, was quick to answer the call and Ms Druce said several other businesses are set to follow suit.
“We’ve had a lot of responses from people saying we’ve helped something close to their hearts and wanting to know how they can help us,” Ms Druce said.
“Lots of them have never heard of our company or even Junee before, but they were still calling us up.”
Celebrity figures Beau Ryan and Ricky Gervais were prominent early adopters of the campaign, helping push it into the public consciousness.