Grant is dad to Ciaran, nine, and their family have been visiting The Yard since 2017. Grant told us all about his big fundraising challenge to celebrate turning 50.

"To help celebrate my upcoming 50th birthday, and raise money for two charities that are very important to me, I decided I was going to swim, walk, run, cycle...and get naked (but not all at the same time)!

I will be taking part in five challenges over the next 18 months to raise money for The Yard and Strathcarron Hospice. For the walking challenge, I will be doing the 24-mile ‘Mighty Stride’ at the Edinburgh Kiltwalk on Sunday 15th September, exclusively for The Yard.

My son is autistic and absolutely loves going to The Yard Edinburgh. We’ve been going for the past 18 months or so, and as soon as he walked in the first time and saw the road and pedestrian crossing, he was hooked! A perfect visit for him is timing the crossing to stop his twin sister at a red light as many times as he can when she’s on a bike or roller skates. My wife and I also enjoy it, as we can relax, knowing he’s playing in a safe environment with the support of the wonderful playworkers.

The main reason I chose to make the Kiltwalk one of my five challenges was that all donations I receive will be topped up by an additional 40%, very generously funded by The Hunter Foundation. So it’s a fantastic way to raise money for The Yard if you’d like to don your yellow t-shirt and join myself and the other Kiltwalkers this September!

Even if you are not able to sign up for the Kiltwalk, but were thinking about donating to The Yard over the next few months, then why not sponsor one of the Kiltwalkers instead and take advantage of the 40% top up to your donation?

Here is a summary of my five challenges, and you can find full details on my Kiltwalk sponsorship page.

• March 2019 - My first Challenge is over - I completed an individual 5k swim (200 lengths) as part of the Swimathon 2019
• September 2019 - I will be doing the 24-mile 'Mighty Stride' around Edinburgh as part of the Kiltwalk 2019
• September 2019 - I will be throwing myself butt naked into the North Sea off the Northumberland coast with about 600 other people as part of the North East Skinny Dip 2019
• Sometime in 2020 - I will be doing a 10k race, but still to decide exactly where and when.
• Sometime in 2020 - I was originally planning to cycle from Glasgow to Edinburgh as part of Pedal for Scotland 2020, but I've just found out 2019 is to be the last one, so I will look for an alternative cycling challenge instead...watch this space!

We think you will agree this is an epic challenge and Grant deserves all our support! If you are feeling inspired, check out upcoming fundraising events you can get involved in.