Fundraising During A Pandemic

 

For more info and context, please make sure to read part one of this post here! 

One of my favourite things is to support my favourite charities. However, being not the most well off myself, but still wanting to help out has lead me to organize or take part in many fundraising events over the years. I have skydived, organized a sponsored dog walk and taken part in more 5/10/20ks than I can count on my hands. 
Not that I've mentioned it at all on this blog (that is sarcasm, I obviously have moaned about it very often), but we can't get out on our normal walks, hikes and exploring days and haven't been able to for over a year now so when trying to do something to fundraise during this pandemic I had to get a little creative.

My previous four charity events have been 20k hikes, virtual events that you complete on your own rather than with a crowd of others like a traditional distance challenge like The Great North Run or the Race for Life and so a virtual challenge was the way to proceed.
As I mentioned in the part one of this post, I chose The Conqueror Events Series and their Hadrian's Wall 90 mile distance in particular. You get to see where you are using Google Street view and get postcards during your journey which is great to spur you on. How was I going to travel 90 miles without leaving my home though?

With The Conqueror app, they actually have a whole exercise converter where you can take whatever exercise you've done and find how the equivalent distance in miles or km. Aside from completing my final couple of miles of the challenge outside, the rest I did on a mini trampoline! [FYI, I highly recommend a rebounder as a fun way to get exercise from home, especially for others like myself with arthritis or other chronic pain as it is low impact on your joints. It actually helped to improve my pains rather than make them worse considering the milage.]
Yes, I jogged, jumped, sprinted, rocked, walked and everything in between to complete the 90 miles worth of steps/distance within 24 days - an average of 3.75 miles per day. 

A completely digital way of raising money I also collected my sponsors fully online. I used Just Giving's Crowdfunder website where 18 wonderfully kind supporters raised £240 for my chosen recipient Vucjak Shelter. Make sure to read this post to learn more about them or visit their website https://www.vucjakshelter.org/ to see just how awesome they are. 

With the Crowdfunder website, you do have to pay a small percentage in fees so what was donated wasn't all received, however I made up the small extra amount and donated a straight £250 / €276 to the shelter on the 22nd of February.

I was so over the moon to hear that those funds went towards spaying and neutering two male and two female dogs (as you can see in the image below)! Such an incredibly important procedure. 

Obviously, as always, I wish I could have done more but I am so incredibly grateful to every single person who donated, shared and sent kind words. You will never understand what things like this mean to me and I need to make it clear that I do not want thanks or praise. I do these things because my dream is to have an animal sanctuary and while my dream may not be a reality, I want to show my intense appreciation and awe of all the extremely hard work people like Dejan put in to help those who have been let down by other humans. 

I urge you to follow Vucjak Shelter on their social media to see how life is at the shelter on a daily basis. Such difficult circumstances, but so much love. Please take the opportunity to donate to small organizations like this and other rescues, rehabs and sanctuaries as often as you can. A pound or two that you would spend on a drink or a chocolate bar can do wonders for smaller charities if we all just try and help.
Thank you.

Until next time...