LOCHGILPHEAD’S MS CENTRE NEEDS YOU!

The Multiple Sclerosis Centre in Mid Argyll is asking the community to get behind a year of fundraising, writes Rita Campbell.

It takes £200,000 a year to run the centre and there has never been more competition for grant funding.

Yet the services provided by the Multiple Sclerosis Centre have never been more needed.

A small but mighty team of three members of staff deliver two projects, which help people with long-term conditions to live their best life.

This means supporting someone’s quality of life in every way: physically, mentally, emotionally and financially.

There is the Snowdrop Centre in Campbell Street, Lochgilphead, which offers various activities to support the community’s wellbeing.

The drop-in centre offers a vast range of support groups, exercise classes and workshops.

The Outreach and Community Wellbeing Project reaches people in their own homes across Mid Argyll, Kintyre, Islay and Jura, who face various barriers to accessing services.

The support provided to each person is highly individual – people get what they feel they need, they are not told what they need.

Centre staff help 300 people to access support available to them to manage their own conditions.

Activities are designed to reduce stigma and value each individual as an important citizen with their own skills and gifts that can be shared to benefit others.

This ethos means that many activities are run by people who initially come to the centre for support.

Karen McCurry, centre manager, said: “The vital work we do should not have to rely on generous donations from those who value us but unfortunately this is the sad reality.”

She explained: “Core grant funding is scarce and becoming almost impossible to secure.

“We are currently using reserves which will quickly deplete.

“To survive we are going to have to heavily rely on fundraising and donations this year.

“We put our heart and soul into our work which includes many hours in our own time, writing funding bids.

“We are skilled and very experienced grant writers often called upon by funders to share our good practice, there is just too little to go around.

“We could give up and walk away, but our community needs us, for some we are the only support they have.”

So, instead Karen is walking right into a fundraising challenge.

She and husband Brian will take on the Glasgow Kiltwalk challenge in April.

The kilted team McCurry will

‘We are skilled and very experienced grant writers often called upon by funders to share our good practice, there is just too little to go around.’