A St. Albert pet store is raising awareness about mental health issues while also helping rescue animals.

The general manager of Paradise Pet Centre said the idea emerged after he attended the funeral of a former employee and saw a pamphlet for Second Chance Animal Rescue Society (SCARS).

“I started thinking that night I would like to make a donation of behalf of paradise. Then I thought ‘No, you know what. I want to do more. Let’s do something bigger and better,” Adrian Theroux-Nielson said.

Theroux-Nielson was attending a service for 18-year-old Caelin Porter who took his own life in December after battling depression for a long time.

Porter’s mother, Shelley, described him as an easy-going child but said things changed when he was around 14-years-old.

“He started saying ‘you know mom, I’m just not the same. I’m not happy.’

“We started talking about it lots and it was getting worse. So we went into the doctor. We started with counselling,” she explained.

Caelin was on and off medication over the next few years. He also made a few suicide attempts.

“The anxiety became crippling like he started to isolate even from our own family.”

He seemed to recover last March and Shelley said he appeared to really engage in life.

Then came another suicide attempt in November.

“It was a very serious attempt this time. He required surgery. When he was discharged he was sad and he was frustrated.”

Shelley explained that her son finished his school assignments in December, went to a hotel and killed himself.

The news affected the staff at Paradise Pet Centre.

“It was devastating to our team.  A lot of our staff were feeling very sad about what had happened, It affected us all,” Theroux-Nielson said.

Theroux-Nielson said he came up with the idea of accepting donations and running a silent auction to raise money for the Porter family’s charity of choice, SCARS.

He said it would also help raise awareness of mental health issues.

“We get a lot of traffic through the store and just raise awareness to mental health and what kind of resources are out there to provide support.

“That's the whole purpose of this, is keep that conversation going, share what you've been through, cuse there's someone else out there that may be feeling the same thing,” he said.

So far the store has raised $13,000.

The fundraiser will run until the end of March.

With files from Kelsey Nichols