DRWF Fundraising: Steps challenge

Chris is staying fit during lockdown and raising money for DRWF

Chris said: “Our family moved to Banbury from London about a year ago. Being in the middle of town, we don’t have much of a back garden. However, the stairs in our place are narrow and steep.

“As we learned about various 2.6 fundraising efforts, we thought that our stairs would offer a worthy arena for a physical challenge… to keep ourselves fit during the lockdown, dry from the rainy weather and raise some money for a good cause all at once.

“My daughter had recently learned about a friend of hers that was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Accordingly, we thought it would be great to lend our efforts to support the Diabetes Research & Wellness Foundation. We have a number of friends who are living with diabetes and we would love to see their lives made easier by treatments improving and discovery of a cure.”

And so the challenge was set to climb 26,000 steps of their home – albeit only counting the steps up.

Chris added: “My daughter and I are splitting the load and after the first four days of effort, we can assure you it’s quite a load.

“On Day 1 we climbed from the ground floor to the top bedroom 20 times each. Day 2 was 25 times each. Day 3 was 30. Day 4… well, we were back down to 15 each as both of us were a bit sore! Each climb up represents 21 steps and we estimate we need just over 1,200 trips to the top bedroom to complete the goal. We are 15% of the way there.

“We are giving ourselves a month to complete it. If we can keep the rate per day to something around 30 trips each, we will make that goal easily. I should note that we have had excellent support from friends and family and are already within touching distance of our fundraising goal of £500. So we are really far behind and have to get climbing!”