TWO school pals of a former St Matthew’s pupil who tragically took her own life have come together to support a new charity set up by her family.

Rebecca Black, 20, and Bethany Alexander, 21, were left devastated after their friend Megan Copeland was found dead at her home on September 30 last year, aged 20.

Her heartbroken family vowed to set up a charity in her name Megan’s Space and successfully raised more than £20,000 to start helping people struggling with mental health issues.

But the two girls who were friends with Megan since first year wanted to do something to help.

Rebecca told the Herald: “There’s no words that you could use to describe how it felt to hear that Megan had died last year. It was a real horrible experience.

“We had in been in the same group of friends since late first year at school and after school we were still really close.”

When Rebecca and Bethany first heard about the charity set up in Megan’s name they immediately wanted to get involved.

At first, they planned to raise funds by taking part in events, but these were put on hold due to coronavirus.

Instead, through lockdown, they devised their own merchandise set up, selling scrunchies and tie-dye clothing.

Under the name Megan’s Space Merchandise they have been able to raise over £1,000 which will go straight towards the charity.

Rebecca said: “We wanted to think of something we could do to raise funds.

“I picked up a sewing machine and started sewing fabrics together, Bethany started to tie-dye t-shirts and we started to put everything together.

“We set up an Instagram page and thought we’ll get 100 followers and we’ll maybe raise about £100. But we got so much support from loads of followers who were really interested in what we had to offer.”

“After that we ordered some packaging and people started to really buy into it.”

Rebecca and Bethany both worked alongside Megan in a business enterprise project at school, and they used lessons from that as inspiration to build up their in demand shop.

After the initial success of the products, the girls started to introduce a new concept of mental health subscription boxes by teaming up with local businesses.

Rebecca said: “I had the idea based on something I subscribe too called birch box which is skin care things which get sent every month.

“Mental health illness is on the rise with lockdown, financial stresses and everyone going back to University.

“The idea of the box is it is full of self-care items, wee samples and testers, it’s a wee present to yourself. “

Rebecca says Megan would be in disbelief at her own brand helping others with mental health.

She added: “I don’t think for a second she would believe that all this was going on in her name.

“When you have low self-esteem and a low opinion, you don’t think that people care enough to do anything about this

“If only she knew that all this would have had happened. Look at what she’s created and how many people that are helping on her family’s behalf. It’s brought us closer working together under hardship.”

For more information about suicide prevention in Ayrshire, visit: www.chooselife.net. Alternatively, you can call Breathing Space on 0800 838587 or the Samaritans on 116 123