Matt Hewson
Lifeline is marking Mental Health Month 2022 with ‘Make October Count’, a fundraising challenge intended to inspire and promote mental health.
‘Make October Count’ challenges participants, whether individuals or corporate groups, to change habits, take up a new skill or hobby or do more of something they love.
Lifeline general manager for Victoria Jason Doherty said the idea behind the fundraiser was to promote awareness of strategies to improve mental health.
“The intent of the challenge is to bring mental health into perspective and for each individual, to challenge themselves and to actually improve their mental health,” Mr Doherty said.
“It doesn’t need to be weight loss, or giving up smoking. It’s more about something you might love to do, setting yourself a challenge for the month to see if you can do it.
“It can be anything you want. You can learn a new skill, run, walk, get social, do a digital detox, give up coffee, whatever you like. You can create a team and as a group challenge yourselves, or challenge yourself individually.
“And while you’re doing that, you’re also raising funds for Lifeline. Every dollar raised helps us help people with their mental health.”
Mr Doherty said fundraising was an essential factor in Lifeline’s ability to help the community.
“Every call we take costs $39 to answer, so it’s important to have the funds to be able to answer as many calls as we can,” he said.
“We answer 5,000 calls a month at our Geelong centre from all over Australia, but we miss about 10 percent of the calls, so there’s still a ways to go.
“We need more volunteers, more crisis supporters. So the money we raise goes to help train and support them to answer as many calls as they can.”
If a month-long challenge is not your thing, Mr Doherty said Lifeline’s op shops were always in need of more donated stock.
“We have five op shops in Geelong, and that’s a big form of fundraising for us,” he said.
“So if people have things they can give to those, that really helps. But just as importantly, if they know of somebody who might be struggling with mental health, let them know they can reach out to us at any time.”
Details on Lifelines’ ‘Make October Count’ challenge can be found at challengeyourself.raisely.com.
