Nicki Fiocco Guides Others Out Of The Darkness

More than 1,200 people walked the track at the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, and Nicki Fiocco finally relaxed.

After spending months coordinating volunteers for the 2018 Out of the Darkness Walk, Fiocco was happy the event played out smoothly.

“This was my first year that I was involved with the walk,” Fiocco said. “The volunteers all did great. I didn’t really see any hiccups.”

Fiocco served as the volunteer coordinator for the Annapolis Out of the Darkness Walk. She got paired with the role by volunteering with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

“After I went through the training for that, we talked about the other areas I could help,” Fiocco said. “I’ve had numerous years of experience with volunteer coordination in various jobs.”

In the past, Fiocco has worked with Anne Arundel County Department of Recreation & Parks and an AmeriCorps program, training and coordinating volunteers for both organizations.

“Nicki Fiocco has been a tremendous help for this year’s Annapolis Out of the Darkness Walk. Throughout the year, she recruited new volunteers and kept them posted on any walk updates,” said Kathrin Olbrich, the Maryland and Delaware area director for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. “We wouldn’t have been able to pull off this event without Nicki’s help.”

This event required Fiocco to recruit and organize volunteers. She made a Google form that included all the different roles and let volunteers choose what they were interested in. Then she sorted them to different positions based on their areas of interest.

The Severna Park High School women’s varsity and JV soccer teams made up the bulk of the volunteers, Fiocco said.

“One of soccer players said they had so much fun cheering the walkers on, and that was their favorite part of the day was just seeing everybody and really feeling part of a community,” Fiocco said. “I think that’s what volunteering does: just brings everybody together all on the same level.”

Though it was her first year volunteering with the walk, it wasn’t Fiocco’s first experience with it. Her children have participated for the last two years.

The Out of the Darkness Walk raises awareness for suicide prevention. It’s important to Fiocco because her life has been affected by suicide and suicide attempts.

“It’s a bigger topic than just suicide. It’s really looking at mental health and the state of where things are right now with people being overstressed, kids having so much pressure so early and then no outlets to acknowledge that they have anxiety or bouts of depression or unhappiness,” Fiocco said.

“I feel like, for my own sake and for my children’s sake, the more we can talk about it and hold space to talk about these deep feelings and anxiety and all those things, once you start shedding light on something, they’re out of the darkness.”

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