Raising Money for Suicide Awareness and Prevention

By Lisa Williamson (Suicide Bereavement Service Manager)

Losing a loved one to suicide can feel unbearable. In the darkest of days, we frequently wonder how on earth will we ever be able to move forward with this. How do we continue our life, when the situation we are now in changes us as a person?

For many people, at different stages of their grief, the need to channel those emotions towards helping others can be a key element in our own recovery. This can be in a variety of ways: from using our knowledge, skills or physical abilities to do something which is meaningful to us.

Charlie lost her beautiful daughter Elli to suicide, and she has already donated a significant amount of money for us here at the Tomorrow Project. I would like to share Charlie’s own words about her next challenge:



Ironman Challenge – Raising Money for Suicide Awareness and Prevention


When we lost my 18-year-old daughter Elli to suicide on 24th January 2022, I decided I was going to need a big challenge to help me through the tough times ahead. The Nottingham Outlaw Full Ironman seemed like the perfect challenge as Elli had planned to one day complete an Ironman herself. My brothers (Jamie, Rob and Will), sister in-law (Jo) and friends (Una, Cath and Ellen) also decided to join me in this crazy challenge. On deciding to do the Ironman, none of us (apart from Una) even knew what it consisted of, and I could hardly run 5K. Coming up to 16 months later, after hours of training, hard work and ‘no excuses’ we are fast approaching the mammoth task of swimming 2.4 miles in open water, 112-mile bike ride and a full marathon, in a time under 17 hours.

This has been the hardest of times for everyone who knew Elli, and I would like to personally thank all the above for taking on the challenge with me, and for everyone who has helped me get from being able to run 5K to hopefully being able to complete the Outlaw Ironman.

On 30th July 2023, Jamie, Will and I will be taking part in the Nottingham Outlaw full Ironman, Rob, Jo and Una will be taking part as a relay team, Cath will be doing the Outlaw Swim Challenge on the 29th of July and Ellen has competed in the Nice Ironman 70.3 on 25th June – all to raise awareness of suicide and suicide prevention.

If you would like to sponsor us, we will be raising money for The Tomorrow Project which is an organisation offering Prevention, Intervention and Postvention for anyone who is suffering from self harm, suicidal thoughts or are bereaved by suicide. Sadly, organisations like these are in desperate need of funds to try and keep up with the ever-increasing demand for their services and provide the necessary support where it is most needed.

Many thanks, Charlie.”


We are immensely proud of Charlie and her team for taking on these great challenges in memory of Elli and extremely grateful for their support!

If you would like to make a donation please follow the link:
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/ironman-for-elli?utm_term=NnXMyP5AJ

We wish them the very best of luck.  x

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