Maxol, the Northern Ireland-based forecourt and convenience retailer has announced mental health charity AWARE as their new charity partner.

The aim of the partnership, which will run until at least the end of 2017, is to promote positive mental health in communities across Northern Ireland. It will support the range and level of important services delivered by AWARE in Northern Ireland and Aware in the Republic of Ireland.

The announcement was made this week by Maxol’s chief executive Brian Donaldson, who was joined by Cool FM DJ and AWARE ambassador Paulo Ross with AWARE director of fFundraising and communications, Teresa Sloan at the Auto 24 Belmont Maxol station on the Holywood Road in Belfast, to officially launch the partnership.

As well as featuring AWARE collection boxes in Maxol’s 230 locations, the partnership will also support the AWARE Mood Walks which are a series of summer walks taking place across various locations in Northern Ireland. AWARE Mood Walks encourage communities to come together to get to know each other, while keeping active and maintaining positive mental health. The locations of the walks are in Belfast, Derry, Omagh and Portstewart.

Donaldson said: “We’re very proud to partner with AWARE, who do such important and admirable work across the country. We have been focusing much of our efforts on community level initiatives of late through our retail network, and this partnership will reinforce that at each of our 230 locations.

“Our retailers and all of our staff are very supportive of this partnership as I’m sure our customers will be. Positive mental wellbeing is such an important subject with everybody affected in some way and we look forward to helping raise awareness through new initiatives and a series of uplifting activities across our network.”

Sloan said: “AWARE is delighted to partner with such a trusted and well-known company as Maxol. We at AWARE, believe that positive mental well-being is of vital importance to every aspect of our lives and Maxol’s ‘at the heart of it’ philosophy blends together so perfectly with the services we endeavor to deliver to communities and schools across Northern Ireland.

“Fundraising and corporate donations are vital for AWARE as they allow us to continue to provide wellbeing programmes and support services to those across Northern Ireland that need it most.”