Charlotte Varcoe
A BOXING tournament has resulted in $2000 being donated to headspace Mount Gambier.
Last year, the tournament was held at Team Nilsson Boxing and Fitness with many attending to support the event.
Owner Barry Nilsson said raffles and auctions raised the funds with the business deciding to donate the money to mental health after losing gym members to the issue during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I have a couple of guys in the gym that suffer from mental health,” Mr Nilsson said.
“We lost two young boxers when Covid-19 went on to mental health so that hit us pretty hard and so we thought we would run the tournament and raise money.”
Mr Nilsson said boxing and other fitness often helped with mental health with the boxing members “able to get their frustrations out” and “go home happier”.
“One of the boys we lost to mental health was responsible for getting his other two brothers to the gym,” he said.
Headspace community liaison worker Nick McInerney said the not-for-profit organisation was thrilled to have the donation which further proved the region’s support for mental health.
“We hope we are able to put this money back into doing something meaningful for the community,” Mr McInerney said.
“We do not have specific ideas at this stage but we always ensure that when we do receive some sort of donation from the community we are putting it back into what we think they would like to see.”
He said that would include investing in more support for locals and ultimately achieving better mental health outcomes for everyone around the region.
“We receive lots of community support and it blows us away and it always comes almost out of the blue from places we would not expect it to come from,” Mr McInerney said.
“We were greatly appreciative of the fact the community does recognise us as somewhere they can invest in and we are always blown away and incredibly proud of that.”
He said he also believed in the benefits exercise had for mental health as well as engaging in clubs, competitions and other activities.
“We are really supportive of that and we love how events like this are able to support us from a community level,” he said.
“It is also good for people in general for their overall health and well being and we certainly encourage people to do more in that regard.”
