What is 3249 BLIND?
In 2024, I’m setting out to run 3249km’s. On average, this is 9km’s a day, every day. And to add to the challenge, I’m doing it blind.
Why 3,249?
In Australia, we lost 3,249 lives to suicide in 2022. As you may know, I lost 98% of my eyesight at age 16 due to a rare genetic condition and as you can imagine this resulted in my fair share of mental health challenges. There is still such a strong stigma that exists around mental health and after speaking all around the country over the last few years and hearing so many devastating stories about people battling their mental health and lives tragically lost to suicide, I had to do something about it! This is how the idea of 3249 BLIND came about and means I will run 1km for every life lost to suicide throughout the year.
Who am I running for?
I am running this year to start more conversations about mental health, normalise talking about the tough stuff and smash the stigma that still exists along the way. Alongside running, I will be raising funds to support TIACS and have set the fundraising goal of $32,490, this is $10 per kilometre I run.
TIACS is a mental health support service for tradies, truckies, farmers and blue collar workers as well as their families. A lot of my mates around the country are the type of people TIACS support so it was a no brainer to partner with TIACS as the 3249 BLIND charity.
I would love your help!
Running 3,249km’s this year isn’t going to mean much without some help from family, mates, clients and colleagues along the way. I would really appreciate it if you or someone you know is able to help out with the following;
Share it – the more people that hear about the run, the bigger the impact we can have on mental health and suicide prevention.
Donate – If you or anyone you know is able to donate to help me reach the goal of $32,490 for TIACS, you can do so HERE.
Partner with me – This is a huge challenge made even harder by the fact I am doing it blind. If you or a business you know is interested in coming on board to help make this happen please let us know.
Book me to speak - To keep the fundraising dollars climbing, I will also be donating $100 from every speaking gig I do in 2024 to the total so if you are interested in having me along for a chat about resilience, mental health, inclusion or the run itself you can get in touch HERE.
Follow the journey - You can find me on Strava, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube & LinkedIn. Across each of these platforms, I’ll be sharing similar content that will keep you up to date with all things 3249 BLIND as well as an insight in to my personal and professional worlds.