At fifteen, Emma White survived a suicide attempt.
Today, she leads a groundbreaking nonprofit that renews purpose in thousands of struggling children, teens and young adults.
Life Is Worth It emerged from Emma’s profound personal experience to transform despair into hope for at-risk teens. They help students discover why their lives are truly worth living.
Last April, Life is Worth It was chosen as the Noble Deeds recipient and received pro bono marketing services from Noble Studios, including a refreshed logo and updated brand guidelines.
As Life Is Worth It reaches a pivotal moment, they’re approaching an anniversary that is pivotal for nonprofits. Noble Deeds is committed to building on last year’s efforts by providing continued marketing support in 2025. Through this partnership, we’ll help advance their mission to show young people that their lives are truly worth living.
Life is Worth It is a profound name. Can you share a bit about what led you to create the nonprofit?
Well, I never really thought that I would go into nonprofit work, if I’m being completely candid. I knew that I wanted to do something with my story of surviving suicide when I was 15. I wrote my book in 2019 and had planned to launch it in 2020, and then I quickly realized that there was a lot more that I could do. Obviously, writing a book is awesome, but there was a lot more.
My mom and I had been having a lot of conversations about what we would name an organization. We had pages and pages of words that we put together over a few months trying to figure out what sounded good. One day, it all of a sudden clicked. I just want people to see that their life is worth it. And we said, “Oh my gosh, I think that’s the name!”
Who benefits from Life Is Worth It’s programs and services?
We really focus on youth, typically between the ages of 10 and 24, and the communities that serve them. That could be people who work with youth, people that train or educate youth, people who live with youth or support youth. So, it encompasses a pretty large community.
We mostly work with organizations and groups that already serve youth populations, like nonprofits and schools, and we provide them with programs, workshops and curriculums. Our strength comes from partnering with established organizations. We bring specialized mental health resources to places where young people already feel safe and supported instead of asking them to find us during their darkest moments.
I think one reason youth really connect with us is our honest and empowering approach. Being able to say that I’ve experienced a lot of these things makes us so much more approachable. And my board members, too. 99% of them have experienced some sort of mental health challenge, suicide ideation or suicide loss. We’re really rooted in that lived experience, and I think that helps us connect with people on a more personal basis and provide a safe space for people to talk about the things that society isn’t comfortable talking about in general.
How has Life Is Worth It evolved beyond its initial mission?
We’ve definitely evolved. In the beginning, our goal was to have a website to sell the book I had written, provide resources and support, and answer questions for youth struggling with suicide or mental health challenges. Then, over time, it turned into, well, we discovered we could empower youth with mental health education that transforms them from passive recipients to active participants in their own healing. Our workshops and curriculum really give them a map and compass for their mental health, really.
I think when running a nonprofit, there’s nothing that doesn’t surprise you, if that makes sense. You have to be prepared for the twists and turns because you can have something planned out, and then things will change completely. One of the big ones right now that everybody’s talking about is funding. Funding for nonprofits is challenging and very competitive, whether it’s federal, national, state or local. What’s going to happen if we don’t get what we thought we were going to get? How are we going to continue to serve people? You always have to be on your toes. Even nonprofits that have been operating for 50 years still feel those challenges. You have to learn how to navigate them as they come.
Suicide is a heavy topic, and a lot of people might be uncomfortable approaching a conversation about it with a loved one. Do you have advice for people who want to broach the topic or voice their concerns but don’t know where to start?
This question comes up so often in our workshops. People want to help but just don’t know where to start. I totally get that hesitation. I felt it, too, before my own experience changed everything. That uncertainty is exactly why we created our training programs. When you reach out to Life Is Worth It, we give you practical words and strategies that turn that worry into confidence. Obviously, we’re always a huge proponent of getting education and training in suicide prevention, and there are a lot of options for that, including ours. We’re here to help you have these conversations in a way that truly connects.
A big part of the work we do is helping people view mental health as just part of your health in general. We don’t experience stigma about going to the doctor when we have a sore throat or when our bone is broken. So there doesn’t need to be a stigma around getting people to understand how to manage mental and emotional health.
Having the conversation about suicide can be really hard. So we train parents, teachers, coaches and friends to notice when something seems off. Even if you’re uncomfortable, don’t be afraid to ask questions and be curious because it really can be the difference between life or death. Comprehensive health includes our mental health, and when we start to see that everybody has mental health, it gets a little easier to have the hard conversations.
Resources:
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
Life is Worth It was selected as the 2024 Noble Deeds recipient. How has this support helped the organization in the last year?
Their team developed a comprehensive brand platform that helped us better understand our unique value and what sets us apart. The in-depth interviews that we’ve had with the team and the board throughout the brand discovery have helped us align on what our focus is. As much as we want to help everybody, the reality is that we can’t. Understanding our lane is critical to how we are going to drive our mission and vision effectively.
Everybody loves everything that Noble put together, and we’ve gotten great feedback. We were just selected as one of 12 organizations to receive funding from the Reno Aces Foundation this year, too, and it was really cool to be able to use the new logo on the Reno Aces screen. Noble’s support has given us the opportunity to really think through our goals as a team and how we are going to accomplish them.
“Year five is typically when nonprofits either establish sustainability or face critical challenges.”
Noble Studios felt there was more help they could provide for Life is Worth It and decided to continue with the Noble Deeds partnership for 2025. Do you have a vision for what you hope to achieve with the continued support this year?
We’re really excited to see what a more effective website design could look like and use the updated branding to help create content that tells our story better. I think there’s always this kind of push and pull. How much do you put out there? Are you ready or not ready? And so, I think this is helping us align with what we want to do in 2025.
When Noble Studios surprised us with the renewal of their Noble Deeds grant for this year, I highlighted that year five is typically when nonprofits either establish sustainability or face critical challenges. This is going to be the year that we start piloting some of the curricula that we’ve been working on for a long time. I’m a huge believer in timing, and this is a big year for us, so I think everything’s coming together at the right time.
Where do you see Life is Worth It in the next five to ten years?
We definitely have goals for the state of Nevada, which we’re currently working on, and then from there, we really hope to extend our reach nationally. We’re already doing some work in other states, but our long-term goal is to get our curriculum into schools across the United States. In 10 to 15 years, if we have the curriculum in every state, that would be incredible. We’re already researching and applying for grants in other states that would let us pilot our curriculum. So that’s the big one!
Our curriculum is called the Total Life Wellness Curriculum. We have a middle school version, which is one semester, and then we have a high school version, which is one full school year. It really came from my work in the state and recognizing that health education in Nevada is lacking in general. We do have health standards here in Nevada, but many states don’t actually have any health standards for middle school or high school. What they’re learning about health is very dependent on the school itself. I was thinking about what helped me get through depression and what helped me get through suicide and realized that there’s no one quick fix. It is complex. A lot of times, our mental health is impacted by other factors going on in our lives – our physical health, our social health, and our financial health. There are so many factors.
Our goal is to provide foundational health education that grows with students as they mature, starting in middle school and expanding through their teenage years and their early twenties. And it’s comprehensive health education. We go through the CDC’s eight dimensions of wellness – physical, emotional, social, spiritual, environmental, financial, intellectual, occupational – and then we add a ninth dimension that we think is really valuable – digital wellness. We teach about the nine dimensions of wellness and how they work together not only to prevent suicide but ultimately to empower kids and teens to better navigate their lives as a whole.
Meet Emma White
Emma White transforms painful personal experience into a powerful purpose as the Founder and President of Life Is Worth It. After surviving her own suicide attempt at age 15, Emma established her nonprofit in 2020 to revolutionize how communities approach youth mental health.
Beyond her organizational leadership, Emma serves as Youth Suicide Prevention Coordinator for both the Nevada Office of Suicide Prevention and the Department of Education. Her award-winning book, “It’s Not OK, But It Will Be – How I Survived Suicidal Depression and You Can, Too,” extends her message of hope to readers nationwide.
A professional speaker, podcast host and TEDx presenter, Emma brings authenticity and lived experience to her mental health advocacy. Her groundbreaking work implementing comprehensive wellness curriculum in schools earned her recognition as USA Today’s Woman of the Year for Nevada in 2024.
This University of Nevada, Reno graduate continues expanding her organization’s impact throughout Nevada with plans to bring life-saving mental health education to youth across the nation.
