Communities

94.3 The Shark’s Brian Orlando is on a mission to raise awareness about the struggle of depression on Long Island and to save lives. As the 10th leading cause of death overall in the United States, suicide claims the lives of nearly 50,000 Americans annually.

For Orlando, his mission began in 2017 with the death of Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell. Orlando knew that music was a tool that could be used to raise awareness and promote healing. He reached out to his network in the music industry to put together a group to create “Choose Song”.

In January of 2019, the group worked with Long Island natives to film a music video for the song, which included his Shark coworker Ashley Massaro. Unfortunately, before the video was released, Massaro herself lost her life to suicide.

This affected Orlando even deeper, who reflects “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about her. I want people to realize that when they do see the video, they’re looking at somebody that fought to the end, even though she had problems, she was trying to help other people. That’s why she was here.”

The fight for awareness continues. Most recently Orlando has teamed up with 1940’s Brewing Co. to create a craft beer called “Never Alone”. Proceeds from the beer will go to suicide prevention, and the label also has a QR code that can be used to watch the music video for Choose Song.