PICTURES: Thanks given to Highland Cross as four charities – amongst them one from Ross-shire – share in £268k pot after latest 50-mile duathlon
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Charities underlined the difference an award from the Highland Cross will make to people across the north at a handover event in Inverness on Thursday.
Organisers of the annual 50-mile duathlon announced that £268,907 was raised by teams taking part in this year's event.
The sum – the sixth Highland Cross in succession which has raised more than a quarter of a million pounds – brought the overall total donated by the event to more than £5.5 million.
More than 100 volunteers and event sponsors and supporters gathered at the Hawco VW showroom in Inverness on Thursday evening to celebrate the successful tally.
The Highland Cross sees walkers and runners travel 20 miles on foot from Kintail on the west coast to Glen Affric, then cycle the final 30 miles to the east coast in Beauly.
Teams of three are charged with raising money for local charities, all of which goes directly to helping people in the region.
Money from this year's event was distributed to four charities, which were chosen by an independent panel – CCAST Highland, Reach4Reality, Oxygen Works and the Glenurquhart Care Project.
CCAST Highland, a small independent Christian charity based in Tain and serving Ross-shire and Sutherland, received a people carrier during the presentations.
Amanda Nutt, from the charity, said: "For the last 13-and-a-half years the most hard-working member of the team has been the CCAST Highland vehicle. It has delivered, rescued and carried users of our service to one thing or another relentlessly – it has taken people to groups and appointments, reunited people with loved ones, rescued people who are stranded, supported people with a trailer to clear up homes and take unwanted items to the recycling centre, taken people to the food bank, moved people through housing support, taken people to hospital appointments, and it has even taken somebody to the delivery suite in maternity.
"It has taken me to visit people in their homes at all hours and provides a handy mobile counselling room where people can feel free to talk without the pressure of being face to face.
"The food bank demand is regrettably increasing as families are struggling with high costs of heating and eating. With this new vehicle we can respond quickly at the time of crisis and turn a desperate situation into one where parents can provide for themselves and for their children."
Adrian Barnett collected a cheque on behalf of the Glenurquhart Care Project, which will provide a replacement minibus for the charity to help people remain in their own communities, thanks to the support of its services at Drumnadrochit. The charity provides day care, domestic support, befriending, in-house and home-based respite, laundry services, a handyperson service, drop-in lunches and telecare volunteers, as well as providing 12 purpose-built homes for the elderly in the village.
Mr Barnett said: "The Highland Cross has once again been very generous in gifting us a wheelchair-converted minibus, and it replaces one they very kindly donated in 2012. A very large thank you to them and to all of you."
Reach4Reality works with over 40 young people aged nine to 25 with autism from across the Highlands, involving them in a range of outdoor activity breaks tailored to their individual needs.
Amanda Dunn, chair of the charity's board, and project co-ordinator Sylvia Longbottom collected the award, which will fund a nine-seater vehicle to transport the service users to activities.
Ms Dunn said it would make a huge difference for the young people, many of whom suffer from a number of other conditions, as they go to their activities.
"We do a lot of activities ourselves and transporting of young people and volunteers, as well as all of our activity equipment," she said. "In the past we've had to use staff vehicles and crowd young people with bags over their heads and food everywhere to get to places, so I think our cars have taken quite a toll!
"So the provision of this nine-seater minibus is absolutely fantastic. For our young people this creates a really safe and secure environment to travel, it gives them a sense of belonging and ownership, it reduces their anxieties and their stress because they immediately get to know who is on the activity just by going into the minibus together, rather than having to travel in dribs and drabs not knowing who is going to be there and what is going to happen."
The Oxygen Works provides oxygen therapy and personalised support to people living in the Highlands and Islands with a wide range of medical conditions and to help them improve their health and well-being.
The award from the Highland Cross will provide an "anti-gravity treadmill" to help people with walking difficulties, whether through medical conditions or in recovery after accidents.
The Oxygen Works' chief executive Leigh-ann Little said: "We've been providing support to people with neurological conditions for about 30 years, and the last few years have been the most challenging for us as an organisation. The funding that we are getting from the Highland Cross will go towards an anti-gravity treadmill which is a really unique piece of equipment that will help people to walk again, which is no mean feat. It will also allow us to diversify our client base and reach a broader mix of individuals so we can provide greater support to our community and diversify our funding as well."
The ceremony also saw a special endeavour award given to Gordon Simpson of Beauly, who raised money for the Highland Cross during 2020 and 2021 when the event was cancelled b y creating his own challenges.
He swam Loch Ness in 2020, raising £3701, and raised a further £4174 in 2021 with a fundraising trek over four remote Munros.
The presentations were overseen by Uisdean MacLennan in the absence of co-founder Calum Munro for family reasons. However, Mr Munro passed on a message of thanks to the gathered volunteers and supporters, some of whom had been involved in the event since its inception in 1983.
"Over a third of a century of service to Highland communities is something that the wonderful team of volunteers, sponsors and supporting organisations can be justly proud of," Mr Munro said. "Some of our supporters have been with us since the start and in some cases the children and grandchildren of original supporters are now volunteers on the Cross.
"Highland Cross exists to raise money for medical and social causes in the Highland and with the continued efforts of the fantastic community of sponsors, volunteers and supportive organisations that creates the Highland Cross, we look forward to supporting yet more hard-working causes in 2023."
Next year's event is due to take place on June 17, 2023.
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