LEE COUNTY, Fla. - Forty-nine people committed suicide between January and May of this year in Lee County alone.

Now, a local organization is opening its doors for the very first to time to Southwest Florida's first suicide prevention and resource center.

C.A.R.E.S is the name of the organization, which stands for Community Awareness in Recognizing and Educating on Suicide.

Consider this statement: "Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds the resources for coping with pain." Now C.A.R.E.S. hope to be that resource.

Three quilts covered in faces and names represent the faces of suicide in Lee County -- pretty teens, military heroes, loving parents. When 24-year-old Angelo Cervasio took his life two years ago, his mom jumped into action to try to save others.

"You don't forget. The pain is still there, the hole in your heart is still there because of the loss, but you do learn, you have to learn -- you have no choice if you want to go on," Virginia Cervasio, C.A.R.E.S. director, says.

So she created C.A.R.E.S., a non-profit for community awareness in recognizing and educating on suicide.

"For every person that commits suicide, there are six survivors -- family and friends. Of those six, statistics show that one will attempt to commit suicide themselves," Cervasio says. "It happened in my family."

"It was just completely senseless," 15-year-old Lauren Reuter, who lost her mom Christine a year and a half ago, says.

"I was really, really angry. I had a lot of anger about it because she left me. She was my mom," Reuter says.

Christine took her own life while on a business trip in Minnesota. Back home in Florida, her family was left asking why.

"We had no sign," Peter Reuter, Christine's ex-husband, says. "I talked to Christine on the phone the night before she disappeared and she was normal. She was absolutely normal and happy."

Licensed Clinical Social Worker Tara Moser has seen that behavior before.

"At the moment, the person wasn't thinking about everyone else, they were thinking about just themselves and getting out of the pain that they were feeling," Moser says.

Lauren took her troubles to Tara at C.A.R.E.S. Through therapy, Lauren found she could finally go through her mom's belongings and remember her in a positive way.

"I'm not sure that she would be ready by now if she hadn't gone to that group. It helped us so much," Peter Reuter says.

Lauren now carries memories of her mom around her neck -- a necklace that used to belong to Christine.

"It was so refreshing and cleansing just to go through everything finally," Lauren Reuter says.

The Reuters are sharing their tragedy in hopes of saving a life.

"People don't want to hear suicide, they don't want to see suicide -- they're afraid of it for some reason, thinking it's contagious, and it's not contagious, it's something we need to be aware of and say save a life, save a family member, save a friend," Moser says.

So they urge you -- if you know someone is hurting, let them know they're important and find help.

C.A.R.E.S. is in Cape Coral on Del Prado Boulevard South but serves all of Southwest Florida. Support groups are free. You can call the center at 239-945-2737 for help anytime or log on to leecountycares.org for more information. The non-profit also needs donations and volunteers to keep its doors open.