Students are taking a stand by taking a seat

What can we say? We love it when our community goes against the grain to support and raise awareness of mental health and suicide prevention across the Highlands and Moray. In this case, we’re celebrating the students of Inverness Royal Academy, who rather than standing up to mental health discrimination, decided to take a seat!

That’s right, to show their support and help raise funds for Mikeysline, 35 students from Inverness Royal Academy embarked on an epic sit-in at Caledonian Thistle Stadium on 8th March. 

Sports coaching students, Amy and Helen shared: “Our teacher told us about a sponsored sit-down that he had been a part of and we all thought it was a great idea. We wanted to do something completely different to help raise money and so we thought this would be perfect.”

Amy and Helen, along with their classmates, made up of S5 and S6 pupils from the sports coaching class, raised funds by collectively sitting on all 7,512 seats in the stadium within an impressive 30 minutes.

Having set up a GoFundMe page, the girls explained: “The class decided to support Mikeysline as now, more than ever, we’ve realised the impact of mental health on our everyday lives. Lockdown has affected a lot of people mentally and we wanted to raise money and spread awareness for this charity who do such a great job in helping to change people’s lives for the better.”

As a result of their fantastic efforts, the students have raised over £500 for Mikeysline. With this we can continue to support people all over the Highlands and Moray who are struggling with their mental health.

At Mikeysline, we’re always so grateful and overwhelmed by the generosity and support we receive from our local community. By giving as little as £5 you could be funding a call for help from someone who is struggling to cope, and as this figure increases, the more support we can give to our communities.

From the team at Mikeysline, we want to thank Amy and Helen, along with their classmates at Inverness Royal Academy, for all their efforts and hard work in setting up this amazing fundraising event. If you wish to add to their fundraising total, visit their GoFundMe page.