A Lurgan man is preparing to take part in the Belfast Half-Marathon to raise awareness for Reach Mentoring – a charity that he says helped his son ‘massively’ at school.
Mick Henderson is currently training for the 13-mile run in September and is hoping to raise £250 for the charity.
Founded as a charity in 2014, Reach Mentoring now provides mentoring to approximately 500 young on a weekly basis across 46 schools.
Mick has set up a JustGiving page, which has already raised £190 of his target for this worthwhile cause.
“They are an amazing charity and are close to my heart as they have helped my son massively in school and they help many other young people across many schools,” Mick said.
Mick is no stranger to running for charity, as back in 2021 he completed a 105km challenge to raise funds for Addiction NI to celebrate one year of sobriety.
Read more: One year sober for Lurgan man whose thought of leaving son without dad was enough for him to act
Mick first heard about the work of Reach when they spoke in his church but really came to appreciate the organisation when a volunteer began counselling his son.
“My son at the time had behavioural problems and mental health problems as well and his volunteer went in and got him out of classes to shower his head a bit,” Mick explained.
“That helped him greatly. The longer it went on the more he could open up to him and talk to him.”
On seeing the impact that Reach had on his son’s life, Mick decided to find ways to give back.
He said: “I was going to volunteer with them myself, but I didn’t have enough experience with working with young people so that’s why I came up with this idea.
“This is my way of just giving back for all the help they provided to my son and to raise awareness around the work they are doing.
“They’ve been about for ten years, and I’d never heard of them, so I think there’s a lot more people out there who could be doing with their services.”
He added: “I want to raise awareness so they can keep on doing what they’re doing and providing this invaluable service to young people across all these schools.
“It’s very important that young people have somebody to talk to.”
You can donate to Mick’s fundraising appeal by visiting his JustGiving page here.
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