Walking the Night: Chicago’s 16-Mile Vigil Against Suicide Returns to the Lakefront

On a June night when the lake air carries both humidity and memory, thousands of people will step off from Navy Pier and begin walking. Not for fitness. Not for spectacle. For something quieter, heavier, and more urgent.

For the first time since 2009, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s flagship event, the Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk, returns to Chicago on June 13–14. Roughly 2,000 participants from across the country will move together through the city, tracing 16 miles along Lake Michigan from dusk until dawn. It’s part endurance test, part communal ritual, part refusal to let silence win.

Founded in 2002, The Overnight rotates through major cities, but its mission doesn’t change. It exists to drag a difficult conversation into the open, to fund research, and to create a space where people who have lived through suicide loss, survived attempts, or supported loved ones can stand shoulder to shoulder without explanation.

The format is deceptively simple: walk all night, return at sunrise. But the emotional architecture is anything but. The evening begins with an opening ceremony as the sun drops behind the skyline. By morning, walkers arrive back at Navy Pier to a closing ceremony illuminated by luminaria, each light representing a life touched by suicide. It’s a quiet constellation built at ground level.

AFSP CEO Robert Gebbia describes the event less as a fundraiser and more as a temporary city of understanding. For one night, strangers become translators for each other’s grief.

Participants don’t show up casually. They train for months. They fundraise. In 2025 alone, the event raised just under $3.1 million. But the real currency here is story.

Take Tina Smith of Kansas City. In 1996, a stranger intervened during her suicide attempt and saved her life. Now, nearly three decades later, she calls this walk her “30th anniversary of life.” Living with bipolar disorder and managing her mental health day by day, Smith will walk alongside her daughter in Chicago, turning survival into something visible, step by step.

Then there’s Brian Siegel, a Chicagoan who has walked every Overnight since the city last hosted it in 2009. His connection is deeply personal. As a bystander in Wilmette, he once physically intervened to stop a suicide attempt. He walks alone, often recognized as a top fundraiser, but carries with him the memory of those he couldn’t save, including friends and family members lost to suicide.

For Suzie and Ben DeAvila, this year’s walk is about their daughter. At 11 years old, she faced severe anxiety, depression, and self-harm. After intensive treatment, she’s healing, and her parents are stepping into advocacy. They’re walking not just for awareness, but to become a visible signal to other families navigating similar terrain.

And then there’s Tammy Hunter. Her story doesn’t unfold in a single chapter but across a cascade of loss: her parents, her son in 2024, and her best friend earlier this year. In response, she founded Beyond the Pain, a Chicago-based organization focused on support workshops and mental health first aid. This will be her first Overnight, a step not away from grief, but through it.

The walk itself is supported by a volunteer crew that keeps participants moving through the night with water stops, encouragement, and logistical care. But what carries most people forward is less tangible. A name written on a shirt. A photograph tucked into a pocket. A conversation with someone who understands without needing context.

By the time the walkers return to Navy Pier around 5 a.m., the city will be waking up. Commuters will sip coffee. Traffic will hum back to life. And along the lakefront, a temporary community will dissolve, leaving behind something harder to measure but impossible to ignore.

Awareness doesn’t always arrive loudly. Sometimes it walks 16 miles in the dark and waits for the sun.

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