Inverness businesses put their best foot forward for suicide prevention charity
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FUNDRAISING challenge taken up by Inverness businesses has seen workers collectively walk almost 30 million steps and raise more than £2300 for a suicide prevention charity.
Staff with the digital marketing agency Teclan came up with the idea of walking or running one million steps for Mikeysline to provide support for people in the Highlands struggling with their mental health particularly during the coronavirus lockdown.
But after inviting others to take part in the month-long challenge, they were joined by staff from nine other businesses who between them notched up 29,417,901 steps.
They calculated it equated to 14,500 miles – about the same distance of walking from Inverness to Calgary in Canada via New York, San Francisco and Quito in Ecuador.
Neil McGregor, Teclan’s head of sales and business development, said he and his colleagues had been talking about looking after their own mental health while in their own individual “bubbles”.
“By walking each day, we knew we would help improve our own mental and physical wellbeing,” he said.
“While doing this, we would raise some much-needed funds for a fantastic local charity. It really would be a win-win.”
They decided to do it for Mikeysline which runs a text helpline service and drop-in centre, the Hive, in Academy Street.
The 11-strong team was then joined by teams from Inverness Chamber of Commerce, Dicksons of Inverness, Cru Holdings, Royal Bank of Scotland Business, Handelsbanken, Brook Street, Changeworks, Ernst and Young and Team 3 Steps.
Mr McGregor said in total about 100 people took part with team numbers ranging from three to more than 30.
He said the money was still coming in and he hoped it would raise £3000 for Mikeysline whose fundraising had been hit due to the pandemic.
He added such had been the success of the step challenge, it was now hoped to run it again next year with teams of 10 people.
The Hive will reopen on Monday.
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