Thanks for taking the time to visit MBM's JustGiving page.This year, as a firm, we are fundraising for the Samaritans.

Every six seconds, Samaritans answer a call for help. They’re here, day or night, for anyone who’s struggling to cope, who needs someone to listen without judgement or pressure. It’s a challenging time for their services and their volunteers, who deliver the helpline, are showing incredible commitment. The volunteers have been recognised by the Government as providing a critical service but around 30% are having to self-isolate. It’s more important than ever the Samaritans keep the service going with increased anxiety levels for many people and unprecedented isolation.

In just 10 days in April 2020, Samaritans has taken 7000 emotional support calls a day, and 35% of these contacts raised Covid-19. Of those callers who are talking to us about this, they are also talking about struggles with mental health,  the impact of Covid-19 on basic needs like food,  and issues such as housing and job loss. Your donations will help the Samaritans reach those who are struggling to cope. It will help them to work on projects such as recruiting former volunteers, virtual training and new ways to be there. It’s not going to be easy but for the callers they can be there for, it means so much.

Because the Samaritans are open 24 hours, we are centering our fundraising activities around the number 24.  We are going to be doing some sort of challenge to raise funds. This might be an exercise related challenge, learning a new skill, or just something generally quite brave and boredom-relieving. Some ideas include:

• The Dispute Resolution Team dyeing our hair
  wacky colours
• The Head of the London Office running 24 miles
  in 1 week
• Writing 24 blogs over the next 24 days
• The Head of Dispute Resolution undertaking a 24
  mile cycle
• The Employment Team doing 24 minutes of planking
  per day for 24 days
• Making 24 custom face masks which will then be
  on sale for donations of minimum £1 + postage.
• A loony dook at Portobello beach for one of our
  Portobello-based Senior Associates!
• Completing 24 days of Insanity
• brave male members of the team waxing
  their legs!
• Our Senior Partner watching 24 episodes of 24 over a 24 hour period, whilst doing 24 press-ups on the 24th minute of every hour.
• Our Head of Corporate cycling 2,400m of vertical elevation in 2.4 days over the weekend of 24 May.