Spreading The Love This P.S. I Love You Day

WEST ISLIP, NY - The 9th annual P.S. I Love You Day, started by West Islip native Brooke DiPalma, will be take place this Friday, Feb. 8.

The 22-year-old started the day in 2010 as a way to turn the tragic death of her father into something positive.

After her father took his own life when she was 14 years old, DiPalma decided she wanted to start a club at her school in order to combat bullying and spread awareness for suicide prevention.

"I wanted to find a way to not only talk about my dad but to talk about mental health and how we can bring it to the forefront of conversation," she told Patch.

She decided to ask a few people at her school to wear purple to show their support and was greeted the next day with a sea of purple. The following year, she made a YouTube video to share her story and once again asking people to wear purple and the response was overwhelming.

So what started as a small group in one school has now spread to over 160 schools across 10 states in the U.S., with even more schools asking to participate in the future.

"We've seen such growth in the past year," she said. "There's just something about this year that I'm really excited about."

This year, the day will be bigger than ever.

On Monday, the New York State Assembly passed a resolution for Governor Andrew Cuomo to proclaim February 8, 2019 as P.S. I Love You Day in the State of New York.

Local assemblyman Mike LiPetri spoke on DiPalma's behalf to show his support for the day.

In the Town of Babylon, the day is recognized every second Friday in February.

On Thursday, the mid-Hudson bridge will once again be lit purple to commemorate the day. In addition DiPalma, who now works as an associate producer for Yahoo Finance, helped spread the word of the day on one of the shows.

Locally, schools are working to get students involved through things like holding door dec challenges, making pins, hosting concerts, decorating the hallway, putting up purple flags and more.

"I strongly believe that through this day we are preventing tragedy," she said.

In 2010, it started with just a few hundred people wearing purple and now DiPalma is expected over 140,000 people to wear purple this year.

Photos courtesy of Brooke DiPalma