The 2020 Connect Benalla calendar includes positive messages, pictures of community members and information about activities and support services available.

Organised by Murray Primary Health Network, it will be distributed free to every Benalla household and also includes tips on how to start a conversation with someone who may be thinking about suicide.

Murray PHN chief executive Matt Jones said the material aimed to increase awareness of how people could seek help themselves and also encourage others to do the same.

"So there's more willingness, more readiness, more capacity to be able to provide services as early as possible," he said.

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Alcohol and Drug Education Specialists national services manager Michael Donehue, who will speak at the calendar launch, praised the project.

Raised in Benalla, Mr Donehue was diagnosed with depression when he was 21, but first noticed symptoms about five years earlier.

"I was suffering the mental health roller coaster, I was up the top, then I was down," he said.

"But I just thought that was the way I was meant to feel, it was just a young guy going through school.

"It took me a long time to open up about the way that I was feeling because being a smaller town I didn't really want people to know what I was going through.

"How many other people in small communities would be doing exactly the same thing as that?

"The more information that we can get out there as individuals and as a community, the better off people will be."

Mr Donehue now presents more than 300 talks a year to various schools, sporting groups, universities and workplaces on issues such as drugs, alcohol, harassment and bullying.

"No matter how dark things might be there is always someone there willing to help, whether that's family, friends, sporting coach, work colleagues or a boss, there is always someone there willing to listen," he said.

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Mr Jones said Benalla's suicide prevention trial, one of 12 across Victoria and due to end in June 2020, had helped link various organisations in the region, with 10,000 copies of a fold-out resource flyer printed.

The calendar will be launched at Lakeside Community Centre, Benalla Showgrounds, 5.30pm, Friday, November 22. RSVP for catering purposes on 0408 779 218.