Vote for me to win bonus grant money
It used to be hard for JacQuan D. Winters to look at photos of his little sister, Kristen. Now he treasures them. Some are candid snaps: Kristen talking on a cellphone or striking a silly pose. Others are more formal—professional school photos like the ones millions of children sit for each year. In all the photos, Kristen flashes a bright smile. She was, Winters says, a beautiful, happy, creative child. But on April 10, 2014, at the age of eleven, Kristen took her own life.
Winters and his family were devastated—and stunned. “There was never a time when any of us thought we would have to live without Kristen,” he says.
In 2017, Winters, a commercial real estate agent with Pritchett-Moore Real Estate in Tuscaloosa, Ala., founded the Kristen Amerson Youth Foundation with the goal of ending youth suicide in West Alabama. Since its launch, the foundation has helped more than 20,000 children, adolescents and adults with mental health and crisis prevention programs.
Empowering Youth and Adolescents
At the heart of Winters’s suicide prevention outreach are his classroom presentations. Working with schools in Tuscaloosa and the surrounding counties, Winters offers one-hour sessions in which he teaches students to recognize signs of suicide in themselves and others, and how to handle bullying. He also teaches broader coping skills: how to remain positive through negative feelings by setting boundaries, communicating, practicing empathy and planning for a positive future.
Though Winters works with students and teens of all ages, his primary focus is on kids in the upper elementary: grades three to five. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for youth and young adults aged 10 to 24 years, and Winters emphasizes that it’s important to be proactive with prevention. “Kids need the skills to deal with crisis and hard times before bad things happen,” he says. “A trigger could be something as simple as a bad grade.”
Winters keeps his presentations positive and encourages participation. A quiz at the beginning and end gives the kids a chance to show what they’ve learned. He gets them writing about their feelings with journaling prompts. And he often provides a snack, which serves as positive reinforcement and helps kids who may not have dinner waiting for them at home. “You see who needs the snack the most,” Winters says. “They’re the ones who ask for an extra one. Or they’ll ask to take one home for a sibling.”
“When I’m invited to talk about suicide, I help people to engage by being vulnerable. I wear my heart on my sleeve.
I’m very open about my story.” —JacQuan Winters
The foundation addresses the challenges many students face, says Tamar Wilson, a counselor at Northridge High School in Tuscaloosa. Thirty-two percent of her students are impoverished and 1%—15 students—are homeless. Kids are exposed to a constant barrage of negativity from social media—something their parents didn’t grow up with. Positive social media images can be equally bad, she says, presenting unrealistic standards of beauty and wealth that kids compare themselves to.
Wilson, who met Winters in 2019 when she was a middle school counselor, says Winters has an extraordinary ability to connect with kids and help them process difficult emotions. He stepped in to individually mentor one of her students who was struggling with a family loss. “JacQuan helps kids to have emotional resilience,” she says. “They can look past their troubles and see hope. They see better and want to do better for themselves.”
The suicide prevention resources that Winters offers are desperately needed, says Tesney Davis, administrator of mental health and social services for Tuscaloosa City Schools. Davis notes that Alabama consistently ranks within the bottom 10 of U.S. states in terms of mental health resources for children and youth. In the Tuscaloosa City School District, there are two mental health providers for every 1,000 students, she says.
“Even if community resources were available, many families wouldn’t be able to afford it,” Davis says. “The Kristen Amerson Youth Foundation helps us fill in the gaps.”
The Power of Community
With degrees in sociology and education, Winters believed he would be a natural fit for a career in the nonprofit world. But he was fired from his job at a nonprofit for dedicating too much time to his growing foundation. An uncle recommended real estate and paid for training. In 2020, Winters earned his real estate license and in 2021, he was named Rookie of the Year by the Tuscaloosa Association of REALTORS®. Winters had found a career he loved, and he found that colleagues and clients embraced his volunteer work: “I’ve had many people tell me that they chose me as their agent specifically because of the work I do in the community.”
One of Winters’ most influential mentors, Michele Coley, an active member of the West Alabama Chamber of Commerce, praises him as the “gold standard” when it comes to building up a charitable foundation. In 2018 when she met him, the foundation had a budget of less than $10,000 and a volunteer-only leadership team. In 2025, it has a budget of nearly $200,000 and five staff members. Ten percent of that budget comes from grants. The other 90% comes from the foundation’s tireless fundraising.
“I was inspired to write books because I know reading is connected to confidence. When you see a kid that learns to read at grade-level, a lot of times, behavior issues improve.” —JacQuan Winters
In the same time frame, the foundation’s annual fundraising event, Strike Out Suicide Bowling Night, has gone from raising $10,000 to $60,000. In addition, Coley says, Winters is a local resource for suicide prevention for children and adults. “Anyone in the community can reach out to him in confidence for help.”
Ongoing Outreach to Share Coping Skills
Winters has authored two children’s books on handling negative emotions and has donated 2,500 copies to area schools and libraries. During the pandemic, when they couldn’t visit classrooms, the organization started delivering “mental health backpacks” filled with notebooks, journal prompts, coloring books, crayons, materials on coping skills, and stress toys for children to use at home. There was such a positive response that they have continued to provide backpacks to the schools, ultimately reaching 4,000 children.
The foundation also sponsors community events with food, games, giveaways and information on mental health resources for youth and adults.
Winters’ next big project is opening My Happy Place, a youth wellness center that will act as a central hub for all the services the foundation offers. Winters hopes to add a new staff member to provide onsite mental health counseling.
Recently, Winters became a father for the first time and says the experience has inspired him to work even harder to help his community. “Every kid deserves to be the light in someone’s life,” he says.
REALTOR® JacQuan D. Winters, CCIM, of Pritchett-Moore Real Estate in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is the founder of The Kristen Amerson Youth Foundation.