Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Festive raffle aims to help boost funds for mental health charity
A PERTHSHIRE woman is raising money for a mental health charity after a friend’s suicide.
Becky Gunn of Inchture has joined with holiday accommodation provider Guardswell Farm to raise funds for Penumbra with a luxury Christmas raffle.
She said the idea came from a project she was working on with William Wells, a joiner from Forfar, who told her he had recently begun a Someone’s Hero Facebook group.
“He did it to raise awareness of male suicide and mental health in his local area, after a close friend committed suicide last year,” she said.
“Having also lost my best friend to suicide a couple of years ago, and after such a difficult year for so many, I felt it was important to put on this event.”
Penumbra helps about 1,800 adults and young people in Scotland every week with mental illness.
The raffle coincides with the charity’s #HoldTheHope campaign focusing on suicide prevention and crisis support.
Raffle tickets for the
December 18 draw can be bought online on the Guardswell Farm website and at Olly Bobbins of Inchture. The draw will take place on December 18.
The Guardswell Farm team offered to sell raffle tickets on its website so Becky could reach as wide an audience as possible.
Kenny Thom of Penumbra said: “The pandemic has been daunting for everyone, but there’s a real risk that people already living with mental ill-health could find themselves at a crisis point.
“So that’s why we’ve launched our #HoldTheHope campaign this winter.
“At any given time, one in 20 of us is experiencing thoughts of suicide. It remains a subject that we find difficult to talk about but, as a leading cause of death among young people and with men in their middle years particularly vulnerable, it is vital that we open up.”
He thanked Becky and her friends for organising the fundraiser and helping to spread the word on a difficult subject.