A Southport two-day fitness fundraiser raises £6,309 for West Cancer Research
Participants in a mammoth two-day fitness fundraiser have swam, ran and cycled more than 1,000 miles, raising £6,309 for charity North West Cancer Research.
Held at Southport’s Victoria Leisure & Fitness Centre, the fundraisers completed the equivalent mileage of travelling from Lands’ End to John O Groats once and swimming the English Channel three times over.
More than 100 swimmers, cyclists and runners aged between eight and 80 took part in the event, which also saw 40 people take part on two-hour-long Zumba and Spinning classes.
Together they clocked up 1,070 miles to raise £4,000 which was boosted by match funding from Barclays Bank. The money will be donated to North West Cancer Research via the charity’s Southport-based fundraising committee.
One swimmer in particular, June Obersby quite literally went the extra mile, raising a whopping £540 alone – the biggest single total amount raised on the day. Eight-year-old Beatrice Rothwell, also showed her fitness mettle by swimming a personal best of 400metres.
Wally Birch, owner and director of Victoria Leisure & Fitness Centre and who at 80 was the event’s oldest participant, said: “What a great effort from everyone involved and we are delighted to say we have beaten our fundraising targets by more than a mile. Well done to all our participants, each of whom played a significant part in helping us raise this wonderful amount of money.
“We selected North West Cancer Research as our chosen charity, because of its continued commitment to funding life-saving cancer research. It relies heavily on contributions from fundraising, so we were more than happy to help in whatever way we could.”
North West Cancer Research has committed to funding more than £13million worth of cancer research over the next five years – £8.1million of which will be spent on projects based in Merseyside.
Research supported by North West Cancer Research includes the use of proton beam therapies in head and neck cancers, the development of effective skin cancer drugs and plans for a clinical trial in patients with bile duct cancer in partnership with researchers and clinicians across Merseyside.
Bobby Magee, fundraising manager North West Cancer Research said: “Thank you to everyone at Victoria Leisure & Fitness for raising this fantastic amount of money. With your support we will be able to continue to fund cancer research projects which will make a real impact locally.”
Wally Birch presented chair of North West Cancer Research’s Southport-based fundraising committee Olive Cutts with a cheque for the final amount of money this week at the Victoria Leisure & Fitness Centre.
Olive added: “Fundraising committees like ours rely heavily on the support of local communities and we have been fortunate to have had the support of Wally and the team at Victoria Leisure & Fitness for some time now.”
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