On the 27th March 2021 the Cadets and Adult Volunteers from Banbury Jordan Detachment “climbed” Everest at home for charity.
On the back of our very successful Long Stand Event in November 2020, which raised funds for the Poppy Appeal, we decided to run another fundraiser. One of our CFAVs has diabetes and has been unwell recently so we decided to show our support for him and fellow sufferers by fundraising for Diabetes UK.
Each of us was to complete a percentage of the total height of Everest which is 8849m. That’s a lot of stairs! Luckily as volunteer numbers increased, the personal quota reduced. It had been over 200 per person initially!
On the day each volunteer needed to complete 174 ascents of their stairs to collectively “climb” the world’s tallest peak. This worked out as 522m of ascent. To give some perspective this is the height of Souther Fell in the Lake District! Not quite an epic mountain day with awesome views from the top but definitely a good work out!
We had regular updates on our Facebook page which began with the volunteers' "start" picture. As the day progressed posts confirmed that the personal distance had been climbed. Some people even managed to film a video! It might have been a home challenge without the testing environment of the peak itself but the red faces in the "after" pictures were testament to the effort everyone had put in! There were also reports of very sore legs for a good few days after the event!
I was really impressed with the commitment and hard work shown by all of our participating cadets and CFAVs. We smashed our target of £500 and were in the top 20% of fundraisers on JustGiving in March!
I received a heartfelt thank you from our benefactor for choosing Diabetes UK and showing him our support; he was very touched and really appreciated our efforts. Well done and thank you to everyone who took part!
