A Huddersfield science company employee has taken a giant leap for men-kind by hurling himself 15,000 out of a plane – and raised hundreds for a highly valued mental health charity at the same time.
Terence Devanney, a process operator at Lubrizol in Leeds Road, took on the sky dive in aid of Yorkshire-based men’s suicide prevention charity Andy’s Man Club, raising nearly £800 for the feat.
Terence raised half the money through sponsorship and the rest was match-funded by Lubrizol.
Having been given the sky-dive as a present from his wife, he decided to complete the leap for charity and as a dad of three with a six-month-old grandson decided Andy’s Man Club was the perfect good cause.
He said: “I think from a man’s point of view, we are generally quite under-represented. I work with a lot of guys, we are all lads – it’s a very male environment. I’ve got three sons and very recently my middle son just had a baby – so there are a lot of guys around me in my life. We tend to put ourselves down the list.
“You go through your life and you’ve had a few bumps along the way. I can see how easily things can spiral when you have pressures in your life: you’ve got a mortgage, you’ve got kids. Maybe there might have been one or two times over the years when I could have done with having a chat with somebody.”
Terence, who started working for Lubrizol in 2022, said he had been particularly impressed by the company’s commitment to the local community.
He said: “One of the things that particularly struck me about Lubrizol is that they seemed very community focused, with lots of voluntary opportunities.”
The sky dive itself, hosted by Black Knights, was an exhilarating experience for Terence.
He said: “I wasn’t particularly concerned. When I was flying up knowing this was it and there was no turning back, some doubts do start to creep in! But my guide made it fun. You’re so high up that it’s very cold up there – it was minus twenty degrees. When I jumped, I didn’t get the sense of falling really. You see the canopy of fields below you. With the rush of adrenaline, you don’t even really feel it. I would definitely recommend everybody gives it a go. It’s something special, it really is.”
Lucas Whitehead, “A massive thank you to Terence Devanney for his fundraising efforts for AMC! Taking that first step into an ANDYSMANCLUB can be just as nerve wracking as a skydive and through Terence’s fundraising efforts, matched by the generosity of Lubrizol, we can get the word out more on our sessions and help make that first step a lot easier for new men. We are a donation-led charity, meaning that any money received by the charity goes straight into the opening of new venues and maintenance of our existence roster of groups, without the support of Terence, Lubrizol and thousands of others like them, ANDYSMANCLUB wouldn’t exist.”
This story was written and shared on behalf of Lubrizol by Lucy Stephens. Can we share your news and get you in the headlines too? Find out how we can help by getting in touch.
