ATE Staff Liam, Connor, Patrick, Stefan and Anthony are doing a ’88 miles in 88 hours’ centre-to-centre challenge to raise funds for the Adventure Appeal this summer. Liam tells us more:

“Have you ever noticed that the word ‘Fun’ is in Fundraise? Well, that’s because it is incredibly fun do to exactly that. But the thing is, only you can put the literal Fun into a Fundraiser.

This summer I’ve set myself the challenge of heading up the most challenging fundraising effort that I’ve ever attempted to date. A small team and I will be trekking between every ATE centre being used this summer for Superweeks. This totals 88 miles, over a 4 day period – 88 hours in fact. Though it sounds plainly ridiculous, I have to say, the five of us are super-psyched; sharing in such an epic attempt together just makes it all so much more exciting too! We’ve also persuaded loads of ATE friends to walk with us on Day Three of our route, Saturday 4th June, from Bredenbury Court – Moor Park (about 16 miles).

As an organisation, we set ourselves a target each year to raise money through our ‘Adventure Appeal’, which allows us to sponsor children to come onto a Superweek who otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to. For 2016, we are guaranteed a large proportion of those places through our recent fantastic grant from the Pom Trust and like every year, staff and friends, as well as Round Tables and Lion’s Clubs, raise sponsorship money to be able to secure the remaining sponsorship places for Superweeks 2016.

At ATE we often outdo ourselves and exceed expectations, so there is no reason why we can’t meet and even surpass our sponsorship targets.

Fundraising efforts like these play a crucial part towards the Adventure Appeal. As staff, we have all seen the benefits of what one week can do to change a young person’s life forever and I believe that we owe it to the young people in our society to provide them with this incredible, life-changing opportunity which they would otherwise never have without ATE.”

Liam