SHINING LIGHT ON DEPRESSION: When Greg “Dosie” Dosenberg  told a story, everyone in the room turned to listen. He had that kind of animated presence, said his sister, Susan Dosenberg-Kelly  of Weymouth.

“You just had to listen to him, he was so much fun, very silly,” said Dosenberg-Kelly, 35. “He was a friend to so many; he was there when you needed him.”

But beneath that happy exterior was a depression that in 2002 led him to take his own life at the age of 27. The next year, Dosenberg-Kelly started doing fund-raising work for Samaritans, a suicide-prevention agency. And she signed on again for this month’s Run For Someone Else’s Life 5K Run/Walk and Family Fun Festival along the Charles River in Boston, an annual event she has participated in since 2008. She is captain of “Team Dosie.”  

“I was kind of scared to do the walk at first,” said Dosenberg-Kelly, a real estate paralegal and one of five Dosenberg siblings. “I guess because I was a little selfish in my grief, I figured no one could know what it felt like.”

She was wrong. She finally was persuaded to walk the walk by Samaritans executive director Roberta Hurtig.