TCNJ

32 The College of New Jersey Magazine One summer day in 2018, Kevin Wong sat at his desk, tears pricking his eyes. He was reading a story from a Colorado newspaper about a young boy's death by suicide. The boy, who had recently come out to his mother, had been bullied at school; he was 9 years old. Wong '09 was the new vice presi- dent of communications at The Trevor Project, a national crisis intervention and suicide prevention organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning young people. Seeing Wong 's distress, his boss offered him a challenge. "He said, 'So what are you going to do about it?'" Wong says. "That was the moment it clicked: 'Oh, I can do something.' I can't bring this person back, but I can make sure everybody who reads about this knows about The Trevor Project." Wong picked up his phone and got to work. By the end of the day, he'd secured media coverage of the story on nightly news broadcasts and in news- papers across the country. Each piece spotlighted The Trevor Project's around-the-clock hotline. "Suicide is preventable," Wong says. "This is why we do the work." In just four years, Wong has expanded The Trevor Project's com- munications from a one-person opera- tion into a team of nine whose messaging drives awareness about the organization's research, advocacy, and comprehensive crisis services. His strategy is intentionally wide ranging; on any given day, Wong might be pitching profiles of Trevor Project CEO and Executive Director Amit Paley to prominent publications, enlisting celebrities to highlight the organization's outreach, or fielding questions himself about its mission to end suicide among LGBTQ youth. By increasing The Trevor Project's name recognition across an array of audiences — whether through opinion editorials that make the case for affirming school environments or a Teen Vogue feature about its Suicide Prevention Advocate of the Year, rapper Lil Nas X — Wong hopes to embed the organization in the minds of those who need it the most. "Raising brand awareness and recall is really important," he says. "We want Kevin Wong '09 is in the PR business of saving lives, especially for LGBTQ youth Reaching " Suicide is preventable," Wong says. "This is why we do the work."

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