Have you ever been in work on a Friday afternoon and decided on a whim to do something extreme the following day?

Have you ever been in work on a Friday afternoon and decided on a whim to do something extreme the following day?

Last Friday, I did just that. I decided that I wanted to bring awareness to the Home to Work / Skills 4 You / Goodlives charity. I decided to walk from Home to Work - home being home of the charity at Cleator Moor and work being Forth's HQ at Flimby. By road this route is 14.1 miles, but given I would visit the Goodlives project, part of the charity on the Westlakes estate and I would use safe walking routes where possible, I knew this would exceed the road distance by a number of miles. It certainly did that! The distance I covered on arrival at Forth was just over 20 miles.

Whilst I was walking I was on social media seeking recognition for the charity and securing donations for the same. I received a phone call from Nicola and Mark Telford who were travelling down to London. They made a pledge that for every donation made, they would match it, up to a maximum of £5000 with a cut-off of 08:00 on Monday 13th January 2025.

When I arrived at Forth HQ, I posted a video on social media, highlighting this wonderful gesture from Nicola and Mark and made a pledge of my own. I committed to retracing my steps and walking the 20 miles back to Cleator Moor. A walk-on-a-whim which was expected to be just over 14.1 miles ended up being just over 40 miles. I set off around 08:30 and arrived back at the Home to Work charity at Cleator Moor around 20:45, in a lot of pain and extremely physically spent!

The donations made total £1335 so far, with £125 of these outside of the time limit for the boost pledged by Nicola and Mark.

I have received news that they are very kindly extending the time limit on this to encourage further donations which will greatly help a wonderful local charity.

Many thanks for taking the time to read my first community post and if any of the kind hearted people in our cluster would like to help ease the pain of a 40 mile slog, then please feel free to make a donation, which will be doubled by Nicola and Mark, vai the link below.