A York County man is running for mental health during the month of May.
Garrett Williams is a trainer at Anytime Fitness in Shrewsbury.
On Friday, Williams started a 24-hour journey on a treadmill to show his support for suicide awareness.
They are calling the journey “Miles for Minds,” and it is to help raise money for a local organization called Building Bridges for Brianna.
Building Bridges for Brianna is an organization based out of York County that turned the grief of a father of a suicide victim into relief for others.
Read more about Building Bridges for Brianna
“I’m so minuscule in the big picture of all this,” Williams said. “There are people out there right now that are suffering terribly.”
Williams’ 24-hour trek started at 11 a.m., but the idea was pitched months ago.
“He first came to me and said, ‘Amanda, can I start a run club?’ And I was like, sure,” Amanda Wildes said, general manager at Anytime Fitness. “I went home that night, and I was like, we’re not just doing a run club, we’re going to do a fundraiser.”
They decided the 24-hour trek would help bring attention to the local run club that Wildes and Williams decided to form to help create community conversations around mental health.
“Running has helped me so much,” Williams said. “In a way, it saved my life.”
Williams and Wildes shared a mutual hardship revolving around suicide.
“Five years ago, I was suicidal,” Williams said. “Thank God for the Baltimore County social worker who took me down off of Pretty Boy Dam Bridge.”
After that experience, Williams said it was running that healed him.
“I got to experience runner’s high, and it was the first time I really opened up about my true thoughts and feelings that were way down deep and causing me to suffer terribly,” Williams said.
Wildes organized Friday’s overnight run and plans to be by Williams’ side through it all.
“I don’t want to get emotional, but it is very important,” Wildes said. “I feel like my purpose in life has always been to serve, to make a difference and inspire, and I feel so blessed to be part of this.”
Williams will stop his run Saturday at 11 a.m.
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