It costs Lamp £750 to empower someone to rebuild their life after mental ill health.

In order to raise £750, I am taking on an enormous personal challenge..

...5k Every Day in May!

I am not able to run due to knee injuries, so I will be doing this on my elliptical trainer everyday - for 31 days.

I need your support and encouragement so much - please sponsor me.

Anything that you can give is valuable and much appreciated.

With ever more demand to support mental ill-health, they need our help. Lamp have had an annual Lamp 5k campaign in support of Mental Health Awareness Week for 3 years now, to raise funds and awareness. It is an opportunity for us to overcome our mental health mountain and overcome a challenge. The theme of this years Lamp 5k campaign is Climbing mountains for mental health and will highlight that physical activity is good for your mental health and wellbeing. People are challenged to walk, run, swim, ride or take part in any activity to achieve the 5k distance, and raise funds for Lamp in the process. The charity also wants to spotlight people who overcome obstacles to their mental health and wellbeing in everyday life.

With '5k Every Day in May', this equates to 150km. Having looked at a number of mountains or distances, if I can do 5km everyday at home, this will be like walking across the West Highland Way. This is a linear long-distance route in Scotland. It is 154 km long, running from Milngavie north of Glasgow to Fort William in the Scottish Highlands, with an element of hill walking in the route. The trail, which opened in 1980, was Scotland's first officially designated Long Distance Route.

This challenge, I will do at home - but thinking of the West Highland Way as my goal and target, along with the breath-taking views and fresh air, will help me to envisage my goal - I have shown some info and photos below. 154 km as a total seems like such a big goal to me - so I will post updates below to let you know how I'm getting on - please keep in touch also - I would love to hear about whether you're taking part in any fundraising currently and how that is going.

A Personal Challenge:

Although, this may not be a physical and mental challenge for some, it is a massive challenge for me - for a number of reasons:

- Due to the menopause and post-covid, I have not been exercising (quite a few physical reasons) so this will be new physical activity for me.

- I run my own full-time business, I dedicate my time to coaching and training leaders, as well as developing my business and volunteering by helping to lead their Business Club, so putting time aside for this will be a challenge.

- Any time I am not working, I enjoy spending with my family - this is my centre and balance, so I am concerned about losing time for this

- I am likely to find this not only physically daunting, but also mentally draining as I aim to fit this around everything else.

- To fit this in everyday, I will need to get up earlier and either have less sleep or go to bed earlier - both of which mean sacrificing time with my family or other enjoyable activities.

- I list these things not to complain. My mind tends to say 'get on with it and sort it out'. I have actually found it challenging to write these things down! But, I realise that by sharing these these honestly, you will support me in the challenge and help me to raise more money to help Lamp.

So why am I putting myself through this?

- I am choosing to believe that this can be a positive for me - it will give me an opportunity to exercise (I've never exercised everyday however, even in the times when I was doing this regularly).

- Mental ill health is increasing and I am passionate about improving our mental health because we all deserve to feel happy, at peace and feel joy in our lives.

- I volunteer to support Lamp everyday as the Vice Chair of the Lamp Business Club, which I co-founded 3 years ago. Giving my time whilst running a full-time business is challenging, but with Mental Health Awareness Week (15 - 21 May 2023) I want to raise awareness for how we can all help each other and have the hope of improving mental health for us all.

- There are so many challenges that people around the world are facing, from the War in Ukraine to Natural Disasters, and closer to home, we all have our own challenges, whether they are physical or mental. Even if not struggling ourselves, we know of others who we love or care for, who are. This is my way of helping and doing something extra to make a difference.

- I see this as an opportunity to learn something new about myself as I have never done this before - I thought about it last year, but put myself off because it seemed too difficult. I thought the same this year, but I am pushing myself because life is what we make of it and if not now - then when?

Please encourage, support and sponsor me - for anything you can - thank you.

On average, it costs around £750 for Lamp to help to navigate someone through the complexities of mental health and empower them to rebuild their life.

Lamps 5k challenge is now its third year and it has set the ambitious fundraising target this year to support the charity's increasing number of service users and carers who need mental health advocacy throughout Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

If you would like to get involved yourself, you can visit Lamp's webpage on www.lampadvocacy.co.uk/lamp5k to find out more about how you can get involved and download the fundraising pack

I have been supporting LAMP for the last few years and they are an amazing charity. They work so hard to support people through their most challenging times. They advocate and enable people to find their way and have their voice through complex mental health support systems, enabling them to rebuild their lives.

It costs about £750 for the LAMP team to help rebuild one person's life. That is my target, to rebuild at least one person's life - please help me to do this.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Sarah x