If we haven’t all done enough walking over the last year as it is… 

Although plenty of things have been put on the back burner over the last year, we knew it was time to dust off our charity shoes and get to work. In the ‘normal’ days, FMC loved to get together, whether that was running the Lincoln 10K or a coffee morning, it brought extra purpose to our team, and we raised lots of money for some incredible charities. Now, as an organisation, we are challenging ourselves to collectively walk over 10 million steps in the month of May to raise money for CALM.  

Why CALM?  

The Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) is leading a movement against suicide. Every week 125 people in the UK take their own life. And 75% of all UK suicides are male. 

This mental health charity is very close to home for a number of our employees, and we want to continue to support the incredible work CALM has achieved over the last year. If the last year hasn’t been hard enough as it is, with people being isolated, CALM is there when it feels like others aren’t. 

It can often be hard finding the words to describe how you feel. Since lockdown, CALM have answered 123,075 calls and web chats, a call for help every 56 seconds. And that’s why we want to raise awareness for CALM. We want to show everyone that no matter the time of day, or whether you feel like you’ll be a nuisance, your friends, family and more often your colleagues are here to give you support, guidance and that helping hand you might need during this difficult time in history. 

Why walking? 

We want to encourage others to get outside and use walking and being with nature as a way to wind down, really relax and find comfort in not being glued to our sofa or mobile phone. 

Exercise can often take us back to the horrors of being at school, an old man in PE shorts (that were maybe too short!) blowing a whistle and asking you to run laps of the field. No thank you! What we want to do this month is encourage people to be more active, get moving. Especially in this lockdown it is so easy to feel enclosed in our homes, watch another episode of Ru Paul’s Drag Race and think everything will be okay. But actually… walking can give you so much more than that. Walking has been our freedom for the last twelve months. Walking has been allowed. And, after so much has been taken away from us, it has motived us to wrap up warm and go for walks when it is freezing or meet a friend for a socially distanced catch up around the block. And hopefully when things return to ‘normal’ our walking activity will still be alive. 

10 million… are you sure? 

Even though 10 million steps sound like an awful lot (who am I kidding it is an awful lot), we will all get our plasters ready, chaffing cream out and sweats on! 

There are so many positives to walking for both mental and physical health. These happy hormones make us feel good. And that is why we wanted to push ourselves to complete some serious mileage and make us feel better for it. Also, it’s free! No monthly memberships or feeling you have to go to the gym because you’ve seen the money be debited from your bank account again. It’s a choice and you can literally take it one step at a time.  

So… you add 10,000,000 steps, a group of people with the biggest hearts and a splash of competitive edge and you get a damn good fundraiser.  

How can you help? 

Any pennies or pounds that can be spared will enable life-saving resources, training and essential support for families who have lost someone to suicide. You can donate through our Just Giving page here.