York Mental Health Charity Celebrates Funding Boost

A men’s social wellbeing group in York is celebrating after winning a £5,000 donation from Yorkshire region.

Set up by five friends in 2016, Menfulness provides in-person and online support to men in the York area.

At the group’s latest monthly retro games night held at The Crooked Tap in Acomb, Menfulness Trustee Matty Lewis was presented with a cheque for £5,000 by Persimmon Yorkshire Commercial Director Simon Winship.

The funding win comes after Matty applied to Persimmon’s Community Champions initiative which supports local charities, schools and community groups in need of new finance.

Winners are announced every quarter with successful applicants receiving between £1,000 and £6,000.

Menfulness runs a range of regular events and activities including football, running groups, walk and talk sessions as well as counselling via local therapy provider Serendipity. 

Matty Lewis, Trustee at Menfulness said; “We are beyond grateful to Simon and the Persimmon team for their generous donation.

“At Menfulness, our vast range of proactive activities are fairly self-sufficient, but the life changing/saving counselling is a large outlay. This contribution goes a very long way to future proofing the counselling and means we can continue to have a positive impact on men’s mental health across York.”

Simon Winship, Commercial Director at Persimmon Yorkshire said: “We’re delighted to be able to help such a fantastic charity here in our home city of York.

“Four in five suicides are by men, with men in construction a further three times more likely to die by suicide than the national average.

“As a company, we’ve put mental health at the heart of our training and support initiatives both on and off-site as well as working across the industry and with groups like Menfulness to ensure that people have early and easy access to different types of support.”