Ayrshire College students #Walk4Lionheart
Ayrshire College students arranged a charity walk on Thursday 7 May in memory of Adrian 'Lionheart' McCallum, the popular Ayrshire wrestler and ex-college student who tragically took his own life last year.
The event was organised as part of the College's #PassingPositivity mental health initiative, following the success of last year's mental health conference, football tournament and social media campaign that Lionheart had got involved in.
The HND Coaching and Developing Sport students initially planned for the #Walk4Lionheart to be a group effort, walking from the College's Kilwinning Campus to the Kilmarnock Campus.
Due to the current social distancing measures in place, the group quickly changed their plan to encourage everyone to take a solo walk - with a general target of 20,000 steps - in memory of Lionheart, and share their photos and videos on social media using the #Walk4Lionheart hashtag.
The walk garnered a lot of support online from the Ayrshire community, as well as the likes of Scotland rugby star Gordon Reid, ex-footballers Kris Boyd, Scott McDonald, Kevin Thomson, Nacho Novo, Alan Mahood, current Kilmarnock captain Gary Dicker, and members of the Insane Championship Wrestling community that Adrian was so proud to represent.
One student involved in the organisation of the event - Ross Munro - is a full-time wheelchair user with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. He took on the challenge of walking 16 metres from his bedroom to his living room. This was a major challenge for Ross, but with the aid of leg braces, he was able to accomplish this, while raising over £750 for the Kris Boyd Charity.
David Dougan, the group's lecturer at Ayrshire College, said: "I am very proud and impressed by how quickly and eagerly the students adapted their event to become social distancing friendly. It was important for us to keep the momentum of our #PassingPositivity initiative going during this time, to stress the importance of looking after our mental health. It was also important to us to pay tribute to Adrian, who was a great supporter of our campaign and a great friend of the department."
15 May 2020
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