A mother who lost her son to suicide has topped her target of one million steps to support the charity that helped her through the trauma of bereavement.
Andrea, who works for Telford-based accountancy firm Turas Accountants has been clocking up the steps with colleagues and friends since June 3 in the 100 day campaign to collectively walk a billion steps for the Hope in Every Step campaign for the Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide charity.
Andrea has completed numerous walks since the campaign started but the finale was a 12 mile walk to mark the end of the campaign which coincided with World Suicide Prevention Day on September 10.
Andrea said that the charity’s local groups had been a lifeline for her after her son, Nicholas, took his own life in April 2022.
“I wanted to get involved to help raise awareness of the work that SoBS does. The support group was a lifeline and helped me cope with the roller-coaster of emotions that followed Nicholas’s death” she said.
The campaign ended on Sunday which was World Suicide Prevention Day. The overall total of steps for the charity over 100 days was just short of a billion – 931,000,000.
Andrea achieved her personal target of walking over a million steps with a final total after Sunday’s 12 mile walk of 1,064,488. She said she had been blown away with the support of friends, not to mention their husbands and families.
Andrea is hoping that the Hope in Every Step campaign will have raised awareness of the vital work that the charity does to support families that have been bereaved by suicide.
A spokesperson for the charity said: “The finest achievement of the campaign is the community that we have built together of survivors supporting each other, meeting up for walks and spreading encouragement to everyone.”
Further information is available on the SoBS website at https://uksobs.org/ or through the Facebook group at https://buff.ly/3oSonET. SoBS has a national support line – 0300 111 5065 – for any adult needing support after the loss of someone close to them by suicide.