AAB raise over £26,000 for Mental Health Aberdeen

A generous 12-month support by a local firm has enabled a north-east charity to step up its provision of counselling services throughout the north-east.

Mental Health Aberdeen (MHA) has received £26,724.62 thanks to the efforts of Anderson Anderson and Brown LLP (AAB), whose staff chose to support MHA as their charity of the year.

The chartered accountancy firm has taken part in a wide variety of fundraising initiatives, including the Baker Hughes 10k last year and doing their bit in the ice bucket challenge, to a prize draw for a four ball at Trump International Golf Links, cake sales and numerous other activities.

MHA provides support services, counselling and advice to people affected by challenges related to mental health and wellbeing. AAB’s first donation to the charity has funded volunteer counsellor training courses for around 10 to 15 volunteers over the course of a year, including volunteers at the Banff and Buchan counselling project.

The remainder of the money raised will be split between MHA’s Comraich Day Support, Carers Support Project and Companions Befriending Project.

Astrid Whyte, MHA’s chief executive, said: “I was absolutely delighted when AAB told me that staff had chosen MHA as their charity of the year. Their kind and generous support over the past 12 months has been a real touchstone for us. They have made huge efforts to bring in money for us all year and the amount raised has already allowed us to train more counsellor volunteers.

“It has been a great joy to welcome AAB to our Comraich Day Support centre in Inverurie, which is one of the three initiatives that will be boosted because of their fantastic fundraising. Comraich is a community support service which provides support, assistance and encouragement for people who are experiencing or recovering from mental ill-health.

“Thanks to AAB we are aiming to start a new peer support group which will help train service users who have been in Royal Cornhill Hospital to go and speak to patients who are coming out of hospital and help them with the daunting transition, as well as welcoming them to the peer support group at Comraich.”

She added: “In addition to this the funding from AAB will also be used to aid both our Carers Support and Companions Befriending projects. It will enable us to provide our carers with some respite and distraction from their caring roles and offer our befrienders and service users a chance to have a fun social gathering. We are so grateful to all at AAB for all their support and the tremendous amount of money they have raised for us.”

Jade Anderson and Val Huggins, of AAB said: “Our staff have had a fantastic time over the past 12-months taking part in a variety of events and initiatives to raise money for Mental Health Aberdeen. It has been great fun and extremely rewarding doing what we can to help such a worthwhile charity which does so much throughout the north-east of Scotland to help people affected by challenges to their mental health.

“Visiting the Comraich Day Support has given us even more of an insight into the variety of services MHA offers and we are pleased that this initiative and two other projects will be further bolstered with the money raised by our staff.”