Epic fundraiser to say thank you to Dumfries and Galloway's healthcare heroes
An epic fundraiser to say thank you to Dumfries and Galloway's healthcare heroes will take place this weekend.
Jim McLelland will run, walk and jog round Lochside Park in Castle Douglas for 12 hours straight on Sunday.
He'll set off at 6am and there will be fun for all the family from 11am until Jim finishes at 6pm.
The 72-year-old from Crossmichael first held his One Big Thank You last year, raising £26,000 in the process to be split between the Alexandra Unit at DGRI and staff support.
He said: 'The hospital belongs to all of us. If we do the right things, then the folk there get to see we appreciate what we do.
'We're short of nurses and doctors. Maybe if a doctor has the opportunity of two jobs, they'll look at Dumfries and Galloway and see everyone appreciates the hospital.
'It could be the difference between them coming and going somewhere else.
'I'd like to try to get people to sponsor bits and come on as partners through their businesses to help raise money.
'The folk from the NHS can see they're doing something for them and hopefully use their facilities.'
Jim has taken on the challenge in tribute to wife Ruth, who died at DGRI's Alexandra Unit in 2023. Sunday's challenge is just days before she would have turned 68.
His first wife Diane, died in the unit at the old hospital in 1994.
People are welcome to keep Jim company and there will be a real festival atmosphere in the park.
There will be plenty of live music, food and drink as well as bikes, cars and tractors to look at, along with lots of other entertainment.
Jim reckons he has put up 300 posters across the region advertising what is happening - and his fame is growing.
He said: 'In Gretna there must have been five people who recognised me from last year and when I was in Tesco in Lockerbie people said I'd been on TV.
'When I started, someone said it will take three years for folk to know what you're doing - maybe it will do and I'll have to go again next year.'
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