Tyler Redway
A NEW community mental health group has formed from the Port MacDonnell Football Club after recently hosting the Bellum to Bay mental health run on December 11.
Although the group is still without a name, group member Brooke Williams said they wanted to raise awareness for mental health after their township was “dealt some blows” in 2022.
“It was a very last minute thing, my brother came up with the idea of doing a run to raise awareness for mental health and then it kind of got bigger from there,” Ms Williams said.
“We probably only started talking about it in October so it got bigger very quickly.”
Ms Williams said the mental health run was aided by fundraising, with a total of $12,000 raised on the day, which would then go towards three main mental health services in the region.
“We wanted to keep it all local, our original goal was about $2500 so this amount really blew us away,” she said.
“We split it evenly between three organisations, which were headspace, Mount Gambier and District Suicide Prevention Network and StandBy Support After Suicide.
“Because it was so last minute, they (mental health services) weren’t able to help run the event but they were all present to hand pamphlets out to the runners and they were available for a chat to anyone who wanted it.”
Ms Williams said there were no other events currently lined up but hoped to make the mental health run an annual tradition while also building the group’s presence.
“I think something we want to achieve is to keep doing these things in the future,” she said.
“There will be a bit more planning so it’s a bit of a bigger day but we really do want to make this a recurring event.”
