A Rhydyfelin Personal Trainer and Boxing coach has raised over £10,000 for charity after being inspired by the increase in mental health problems during the lockdowns.
Darren Wilson, who has been working in the fitness and boxing industry for fourteen years, wanted to support his local community to get active whilst raising funds to support mental health. Darren set up the Resolute – Ultimate Virtual Fitness Challenge through his social media profiles and encouraged people to take part to ’Do something amazing in 2021’ and raise money for Mind.
Darren’s challenges consisted of doing something on the hour, every hour for ten hours. He set goals for beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels of fitness, which included:
Beginner: Run one 1 mile, every hour for 10 hours;
Intermediate: Run 1 mile, plus 10 burpees, every hour for 10 hours;
Advanced: Run 2 miles, plus 20 burpees, every hour for 10 hours.
Fifteen people from the surrounding areas engaged in Darren’s challenge on Saturday 20th February and raised a staggering £5,054 between
them. Darren was then supported by South Wales based business FlyForm and its founders Phil and Aaron Davies to match fund the money raised by everyone taking part in the challenge.
A total of just over £10,000 was split 50/50 between the Mind national charity and Cwm Taf Morgannwg Mind. We caught up with Darren this week for a photo opportunity and to speak to him about what inspired him to create the Resolute – Ultimate Virtual Fundraising Challenge:
“I’d been reading about how lots of people have been struggling with their mental health during the lockdowns, adults and children, and I was also aware of a few people who had taken their own life in the local area. I wanted to give people a reason to get active, whilst supporting our local mental health charity, so I came up with the idea of Resolute.
“Gyms were closed and we were in the middle of a lockdown, so the challenge had to be something people could do on their own. I’m so grateful to everyone who got involved, took part and raised money for this challenge. Everyone who took part wanted to make sure that the money raised would go to supporting people in the Rhondda, so we teamed up with Cwm Taf Morgannwg Mind.”
Cwm Taf Morgannwg Mind Director Julian John commented:
“We want to say a big thank you to Darren for all his efforts. The money he has donated through this challenge will go directly into our Counselling services so that we can offer free support to the people across Cwm Taf who need it most.
“People like Darren really make a difference to their local community. He is passionate about exercise, fitness and positivity and knows the benefits of this to our mental health.”
For more information on this article, or to get involved in future fundraising activities for Cwm Taf Morgannwg Mind, please email gareth.lewis@ctmmind.org.uk