HARTFORD, Conn. ― On the outside, Jordan Porco was a typical 18-year-old college freshman.
He loved the outdoors. He snowboarded. He sought out new music, creating CDs and playlists and sharing them with his friends.
So when Marisa Giarnella-Porco and her then-husband Ernie Porco received a call in February 2011 that their son had died by suicide, they were left with a gaping hole – and questions that seemed unanswerable.
“We’re piecing together a puzzle: would’ve, should’ve, could’ve,” she said. “You live with that. . What if I’d did this? What did I miss?”
To channel their grief, in 2012 the two co-founded the Jordan Porco Foundation, a Hartford-based nonprofit that seeks to promote mental health awareness for young adults and to prevent suicide ― the second leading cause of death among 15- to 24-year-olds, according to the federal Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. The foundation has nine staff members, with Giarnella-Porco serving as president and Porco chairing the board of directors.
“I was wired early on to know that something good had to come out of this tragedy,” she said.
Despite being a social worker for 30 years, Giarnella-Porco said she didn’t fully grasp the prevalence of suicide until it hit home.
