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Handpainted Guitar Auction to Raise Funds for Suicide Prevention

By Nicholas Rizzi | September 10, 2014 1:18pm
  The show is one of three events started by Melissa O'Connell to raise money for suicide prevention.
Guitars for Life
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WESTERLEIGH — A Staten Island restaurant owner is hosting a series of fundraising events for sucide prevention outreach — after losing her sister to suicide two years ago.

Melissa O'Connell, owner of Pepper Jack Grill in Westerleigh, Staten Island, is hosting an art show in her eatery featuring 13 local artists hand painting acoustic guitars, in the first of a multifaceted fundraising campaign in honor of her sister, Amanda O'Hara.

All the money from the events will be donated to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, O'Connell said.

The art show, called "Guitars for Life," was inspired by O'Hara, an artist who "used to paint on anything, but mostly on instruments, so that's where I got the idea from," O'Connell said.

Patrons at the restaurant can pay $20 for three raffle tickets for the chance to win one of the guitars, O'Connell said.

Aside from the 13 hand painted instruments, she's also separately raffling off an acoustic guitar signed by several Staten Island musicians, including A.J. Pero from Twisted Sister, Vernon Reid of Living Colour and Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal from Guns N' Roses.

On Wednesday, O'Connell will also sponsor the second annual "Strokes for Life" golf outing at Silver Lake Park.

The final fundraising event will be on Oct. 5 with the "Out of the Darkness Community Walk" at Clove Lakes Park, which will end with a concert at Pepper Jack of local cover band "OCD," where the guitars will be raffled.

Aside from raising money for the anti-suicide foundation, O'Connell said she hopes the event focuses attention on the problem of suicide.

"Not only is it a society taboo that no one wants to talk about and whose family survivors don’t want to own up to publicly, but it 'silently' effects our society in epidemic proportions," she said. "I have learned more than I ever wanted to know about this silent killer."