Runshaw College students raise £7K for mental health charity

A college in Leyland is celebrating after raising thousands for a mental health charity.

Students from the Runshaw College in Leyland raised £7,136.49 thanks to a charity partnership with Leyland-based Lancashire Mind.

Over the course of a year, students and staff came together to host a variety of events and activities in an effort to fundraise for the cause.

“We did a variety of events in the college,” said head of student services Camilla Gregory. “We had a student who shaved his head!

“He raised over £600, and he shaved it in front of all the students. We also participated in Leyland Festival and raised over £1,000 there as well. We also had a variety of enrichment activities like our Winter Wonderland and our Eid Markets.

“We decide on a college charity every year, and we do that via a student and staff vote. The one for last year was Lancashire Mind - I think it was very prominent at the time because there are a lot of students who experience mental health issues.

“It’s an area at the moment that particularly affects the age group we’re working with. So, it was decided we would support them as our college charity last year.”

According to Camilla, members of the Lancashire Mind team were “fantastic” at delivering educational sessions to both students and staff across the fundraising period.

“They were brilliant at coming in and delivering session about the support they offer for mental health, which was obviously invaluable to us in terms of providing resources for students and apprentices to access.

“The apprentices came in and did a training day with them, and they all got meet each other, and we did an all-day session based around supporting mental health in the workplace.

“It was very much a mutualistic relationship. It was lovely.”

The proceeds will go towards supporting mental health schemes across Lancashire, including community hubs, wellbeing away days, and therapy and coaching services for children.

And Camilla said this year they had raised far more than in any charity partnership the college had done previously.

”Over the last couple of years, we’ve always had a college charity,” Camilla said. “The one we had previous to [Lancashire Mind] we had for a couple of years because it was over the Covid period, but we’ve always hit the £4,000 to £5,000 mark.

“This year it’s been really positive, and overall in the past 18 months, we raised £12,000 - but a lot of that has gone to other charities, like Derian house and St. Catherine’s Hospice. Overall, we’ve done brilliantly.

“We’ve always thought that to deliver on the entrepreneurial and organisation skills that students need for their future progression, they need to come up with ideas themselves. The engagement with it has been really high.

“I think this is the highest amount of money we’ve had so far, but we are looking now at picking our charity for this coming academic year,” Camilla continued.

“We’ve set ourselves a bar now, and now we have to break it!”