Paige Marquis wishes some of her friends had known about Kids Help Phone when they were younger. She wonders if things could have been different if they had accessed the free online counselling for kids and young adults.
Standing outside the Saskatoon Field House with her teenage son, Marquis said she lost friends who were in their twenties to suicide.
“We were trained to keep things inside. There’s kids that have family available, but then there’s some things that kids don’t wanna tell their families,” Marquis said.
On Sunday, she joined hundreds of people in the 13th annual BMO Walk so Kids Can Talk fundraiser to support youth who struggle with their mental health.
She said Kids Help Phone (KHP), a national 24/7 support line established in 1989, “helps people understand that they’re not alone.”
“Kids need to understand that Kids Help Phone is a safe place that they can reach out to if they need to talk to someone,” Marquis added.
The event and five-kilometre walk in Saskatoon and 15 other communities across Canada raised $4 million for KHP. The platform handles calls, texts and interactions on social media with people aged five to 29 who have feelings of anxiety and stress, depression or suicide.
In Saskatchewan, KHP supported more than 90,000 interactions with young people in 2025. Calls in the province also increased by 16 per cent over the last year.
Event volunteer and high school student, Avery MacMillan, said she wanted to help raise awareness about the free mental health tool that kids may not be aware of.
“A lot of young people just don’t have the support, and it takes a lot of confidence to be able to talk to people about mental health.
“So Kids Help Phone is a fairly simple way for kids to get that support. I just think that it’s really important for kids to be able to have.”
MacMillan said “uniting as a group” makes people more confident in finding ways to cope with mental health.
Senior development manager of philanthropy at KHP, William Craddock, said it’s important for young people to know that talking about mental health matters.
“It’s important … to make sure that they know that there is someone that they can turn to; they might not be comfortable talking to their parents or even a guidance counsellor.”
