By Julia Train
In February 2016, Mays Landing lost a young boy to suicide. His name was Cole Rocap.
He was 14, grew up on Lake Lenape and loved to wakeboard, a water sport in which one stands on a wakeboard and performs aerial maneuvers while being towed behind a motorboat.
From that tragedy, however, Rocap’s older cousin, Vincent Giardino, and sister, Samantha Rocap, founded The Wake Up Project, a 501(c)(3) that hosts a friendly wakeboarding competition with the mission of raising funds for suicide prevention and mental health awareness.
“I didn’t think I was doing enough. I didn’t think anybody was doing enough and I was just trying to figure out a way that I could do my part to fight youth suicide specifically,” said Giardino. “Once I came up with the idea and got a little bit more involved in mental health awareness as a cause, then it took off a little bit more and I got more heavily involved.”
The competition takes place at Lenape Park, where the lighthouse is. There are vendors, booths with mental health service information and other activities.
There have been two such events – the first in 2018 and the second the following year. Giardino never expected it to become a full nonprofit. He thought he would do one fundraiser with Rocap’s friends and be done.
“It ended up being a little bit too successful to not do it again,” said Giardino.
In 2020, however, COVID-19 prevented the competition from happening and each year after, a different obstacle presented itself.
In 2021, restrictions weren’t lifted early enough to put the event in place and in 2022, Lenape Park was under construction.
“In 2023, we were just so frustrated with all the delays that we just took that year off,” said Giardino.
Five years later, the Wake Up is coming back July 27 and the charity has been working on the event since last August to make sure of it.
In addition to wakeboarding, there will be inflatable obstacle courses, bounce houses, food trucks, a cornhole tournament and a yoga flow.
“We just try to offer as many unique things in the park on that day as possible so that people want to come to the park,” said Giardino.
In 2019, the event raised almost $20,000. While some of that money was kept for other fundraisers and the main event, a majority is dispersed to organizations in the local community that have an immediate impact.
In the past, the nonprofit donated to Stockton’s Active Minds chapter, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting mental health awareness and education for young adults through peer-to-peer interaction.
Giardino said that ideally, the organizations that he plans to donate to are going to be available to attend the event and set up tents where they can provide the public with more clinical information.
“I can spread awareness and tell everybody that we need to create safe spaces…but it’s a lot more effective if you know somebody can come out with brochures and actually explain the services that they offer, why they offer them and how they could help somebody who might be struggling,” said Giardino.
Although the event is meant to spread mental health awareness and help with suicide prevention on a grander scale, the core reason for it remains to honor Cole’s memory.
