A FIT Ayrshire dad who took on Goatfell four times in a day to raise funds to thank NHS workers has raised a grand sum.

During lockdown, Fit Ayrshire Dads – who aim to improve men’s mental health and turn them into better versions of themselves – decided they wanted to do something to raise money for the ICU staff at both Crosshouse and Ayr Hospital.

Founder Kevin Brown, who previously climbed Goatfell three times back in 2018, decided to take on a quadruple climb of the Arran peak to raise funds for a night out for NHS workers from the ICU unit and in memory of their late friend and member Steven Gilmour.

Kev said: “We’ve got a thing called the founder challenge. Back when we hit 1,000 members, the guy’s got to nominate me to do something daft. We hit 3,000 just recently so we’ve upped it and this time I have four to do.

“We’re going to add to the ICU pot that we’ve been raising so far. We wanted to keep that going until all this was by as hospital staff are still there working, they’ve not stopped, so anything I raise will go to that.

“The plan is when it [the pandemic] is all over and everything is back open again near the end of the year we want to have a venue and put on a free night for them, with a free bar and basically have a knees up for the night to say thank you.

“It felt like it would be something a bit different. I know there is so much going towards the charity things, but a lot of the doctors, nurses and staff through the wards won’t see that so thought it would be good to do something just for those guys.”

The Fit Ayrshire Dad founder thanked everyone for their kind donations.

He said: “It was a toughie, I’m a bit bushed. I had done the triple before and I knew how tough the three was, but felt this time I was a bit fitter, so I went over on the Friday night before a lot of the guys to start early at 6am. We’ve had the ICU fundraiser ongoing for a while as the FADs drive during lockdown so I decided to keep that going with our founder’s challenge.

“We had raised about three grand towards the staff and I set up a go fund me to raise funds of my own to add.

“We’ve just over £1,000 on the page and some funds to add in so it’s about £1,300 from this to add to the pot.

“The ICU are still up to their necks in this situation, we had spoke to one of the lead nurses in the ICU so the idea is to

put on a free night for them on all,

“With lockdown it would maybe be towards the end of the year, but that just gives us time to raise more money.”