Braving the Coals to Save Some Souls
Nicholas Sims
My Story
Every 90 minutes, someone in the UK or Ireland takes their own life.
The largest sex and age-range group of those being middle aged men. In fact, males are three times more likely to die by suicide than females and this skew is even greater in rural / less affluent areas. I don't mind admitting, I was nearly one of them, but this isn't about me, and it isn't all about men either. Over the last few years, the sex and age-range group with the greatest increase (though not absolute number) is young women. The point is, despair and thoughts of the last resort can hit anyone and not everyone has friends and family to reach out too (or feels they don't), and that's where The Samaritans come in.
Every 10 seconds, one of The Samaritans almost 20,000 trained listening volunteers responds to a call for help received by one of more than 200 branches in locations across the UK and Ireland, providing a literally vital service across the nations because calls from anywhere in the UK can be routed to any branch anywhere. However, none of those branches receives any central funding: they're all required to be financially independent through their own fund-raising efforts.
It costs the Northallerton and the Dales branch approx £18K pa just to stay afloat, and that includes covering the cost of all incoming calls (calls to The Samaritans - on 116 123 - are free), which often last more than an hour and so are some of the most expensive calls. That's why I'm doing something I'd never normally dream of.
Fool that I am, on April 1st, I shall be walking barefoot the length of a 6 meter path of red hot embers. Me, who (due to my sensitive soles) rarely goes barefoot under any circumstances and never on hot or uneven surfaces. This is a proper challenge for me, so please, dig deep, both to encourage me and to support the, sadly, all too necessary work of The Samaritans of Northallerton and the Dales. (I've even started the ball rolling for you.)
Remember: any branch anywhere could end up taking a call from someone you love in their hour of need.
Thank you.
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Target
£500
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Raised so far
£708
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Number of donors
28
My Story
Every 90 minutes, someone in the UK or Ireland takes their own life.
The largest sex and age-range group of those being middle aged men. In fact, males are three times more likely to die by suicide than females and this skew is even greater in rural / less affluent areas. I don't mind admitting, I was nearly one of them, but this isn't about me, and it isn't all about men either. Over the last few years, the sex and age-range group with the greatest increase (though not absolute number) is young women. The point is, despair and thoughts of the last resort can hit anyone and not everyone has friends and family to reach out too (or feels they don't), and that's where The Samaritans come in.
Every 10 seconds, one of The Samaritans almost 20,000 trained listening volunteers responds to a call for help received by one of more than 200 branches in locations across the UK and Ireland, providing a literally vital service across the nations because calls from anywhere in the UK can be routed to any branch anywhere. However, none of those branches receives any central funding: they're all required to be financially independent through their own fund-raising efforts.
It costs the Northallerton and the Dales branch approx £18K pa just to stay afloat, and that includes covering the cost of all incoming calls (calls to The Samaritans - on 116 123 - are free), which often last more than an hour and so are some of the most expensive calls. That's why I'm doing something I'd never normally dream of.
Fool that I am, on April 1st, I shall be walking barefoot the length of a 6 meter path of red hot embers. Me, who (due to my sensitive soles) rarely goes barefoot under any circumstances and never on hot or uneven surfaces. This is a proper challenge for me, so please, dig deep, both to encourage me and to support the, sadly, all too necessary work of The Samaritans of Northallerton and the Dales. (I've even started the ball rolling for you.)
Remember: any branch anywhere could end up taking a call from someone you love in their hour of need.
Thank you.
