Why Hartlepool fundraisers went on a 'walk' to Rome and ended up in Tokyo

That is what everyone associated with the town’s Inspire Coaching managed to do when boosting the UChangeLives25 campaign to help young carers. Well, sort of.

Coaches, members and their families all decided the best way to uniquely raise money towards the £50,000 target was to collectively walk as many steps as it would take to get them from Wembley to Italy’s Stadio Olimpico.

During the course of the 25-day challenge, the Inspire Coaching team ended up smashing all expectations and achieved a second goal instead – the number of steps required to reach 2021 Olympics host city Tokyo.

Inspire Coaching’s Becky Robinson said: “It ended up getting quite competitive as everyone competed for our daily ‘Top Stepper’ title.

“One day, one of our steppers had a daily total of 31,000. Also a special mention must go to our superstar stepper, six-year old Rohan, who totalled 500,000 steps over the 25 days. 687,623 was collectively our highest daily total number of steps.

“Collectively we walked 10m steps in 25 days between us which is the equivalent distance from London to Tokyo. We chose this route to celebrate the Olympics 2021.

“It was a fantastic way to motivate our members during lockdown whilst also raising awareness for such a great cause.

“We had children from the age of three take part, all the way up to 65-year-olds. We even had some Inspire supporters from Preston who took part in the challenge.”

As well as Becky, the three other coaches at Inspire – Vicky Weighill, Tom Heselton and Steven Smith - took part.

They all hope to help the Hartlepool-based PFC Trust’s UC25 campaign to raise £50,000 for a respite caravan for young carers by April 2.

Becky said: “This challenge certainly helped me throughout lockdown as I have been unable to work during this time and my job is what usually keeps me active.

“I set myself a challenge of a minimum of 10,000 steps a day.

"After homeschooling all day I would sometimes only be on 3,000. This would force me to go out for a long walk around tea-time which I would not have done otherwise.

“One day it had rained all day so I was aware that not many people would have made it out for walks, so me and Granny Smith, what my mam gets called, decided to get wrapped up and take one for the team.

“We were completely soaked through to the skin but what was lovely was that we walked past other members of our group that had thought the same. It was very much a great team effort.

“We are extremely thankful to everyone who took part and cannot wait to see everyone in person again when our Inspire Coaching sessions restart in April.”

To join Inspire Coaching in UC25 email [email protected]. Alternatively, donations can be made at justgiving.com/pfctrust or text UC25PFC 3 to 70085 (you can donate any amount by changing the number 3). Texts cost one standard rate message plus cost of donation.

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