The Saturday-afternoon pushup challenge took place at the Southern Shore Arena. Challengers, besides raising awareness and funds, were vying for the Guiney Challenge Trophy.
Two teams took part. Guiney’s Challenge consisted of Guiney, Liam Walsh and Bruce Halleran. They were competing against the Metabolic Meltdown Pushup team, made up of Paul Fifield, Mike Collins and Shane Skinner.
The team completing the most pushups in one hour was to win the trophy.
Not to be outdone by the challengers, Guiney’s team completed the most pushups in the allotted time with 2, 518. The Metabolic Meltdown team racked up 2,038.
Susan Guiney, Bill’s wife, told The Telegram that the total for money raised won’t be known immediately, and that money was still coming in as of suppertime Saturday.
Guiney created the event in 2016 to bring awareness to mental health issues after two of his daughters were treated for depression.
“Four days apart, two of them ended up in the hospital with depression. One took a bunch of pills; the other one cut her wrist. She said she wasn’t trying to kill herself, but she accidentally cut too far. That gave us a bit of a scare,” Guiney said in an interview with The Telegram after the first pushup challenge in August 2016.
“As parents, after the first scare you don’t forget. That’s why I did this,” he said at the time.
Bev Hiscock of the Canadian Mental Health Association NL was there to officiate and to cheer the teams on.
“Bill created the event in 2016 to show his daughters who suffer from mental illness that 1) they matter; 2) there’s help out there and 3) everyone has a part to play in reducing stigma."
The event will raise what Hiscock says are much-needed funds for CMHA-NL.
With files from Louis Power
