Have you ever heard your friends or co-workers buzzing about taking part in a challenge event? At first, you might find yourself asking why they want to spend hours running that far. But as you hear them talk more on their goals and reasons, you might start to find yourself thinking, “actually, this sounds pretty fun.”
Once you get your head around the idea of doing something like running for fun, you might find yourself wondering where to start and how to find a charity. Luckily, most charities have a spot on their website telling you why and how to pick them – here’s ours.
There’s so many reasons reasons to pick GFS for your challenge events, but we’ll leave it to two of our 2023 London Landmarks Half Marathon runners share their stories.
First up is hairdresser, Heather Wincell. Heather started off running with her friends and family, to keep them moving and motivated.
At first, she wasn’t signed up to run the race herself. She was there helping her friend and two daughters train for LLHM.
But encouraging them to train and keep going meant being out for practice with them. So, she decided to throw her hat in the ring.
“I thought I might as well earn some money for charity as well,” Heather said. “I was given a list of remaining charities, by our Foxy Lady Running Club, when I looked through them GFS jumped out at me.”
Even for those who enjoy running, doing a marathon or challenge event can be overwhelming. And it can sometimes feel difficult to keep up with training and routines.
But Heather managed to keep herself up and out on the pavement by turning a task into something more social. By being part of a running club, she was able to reach out for company, with different runners joining in for different parts of her route.
The members of her running club share their routes on their Facebook page, asking if anyone wants to join them for some or all of the route. On her runs, Heather would tell her companions all about GFS’ long history supporting girls.
“When you say you’re raising money for a cause people always want to help,” Heather explained. “This motivates me and encourages me to get out and do it.”
Heather spread the word of GFS at work too. She shared her story and ours with her clients, encouraging them to spread the word even further via Facebook. Each time Heather would get a new donation.
But there’s still the golden question left to answer – why choose GFS? Afterall, there are so many big well-known charities out there with spots in challenge events.
I am a hairdresser, GFS appealed to me as 85% of my industry are female and 85% of clientele are female. I have been lucky enough to have strong support and role models, we employ young females and we wanted to enable less fortunate girls to have a greater chance.
-Heather
Because GFS works to fill those gaps for girls facing multiple disadvantages, we aligned perfectly with Heather’s goals and values. We bet if you support gender equality (or equity), like Heather, you’ll find a lot in our values that reach out to you.
That was certainly the case for the next person on the GFS roster, Sophie Hogan. Journalist, Sophie Hogan, decided she wanted to run a half-marathon after doing it once before by mistake. She ran her accidental half-marathon once during lockdown, only realising she’d covered the distance when her tiredness set-in and she checked her total distance covered.
So, the day after running a successful 10k with a friend, she decided to challenge herself with her first official half-marathon.
Sophie signed up with GFS to run the LLHM because she wanted to prove to herself that she could still do it – and she did!
She even managed to meet her personal goal of coming in under three hours, by finishing in two hours and 53-minutes.
From our standpoint, Sophie’s attitude and desire to challenge herself in this way is a fantastic reflection of our values.
But more importantly, what drew her to us?
Turns out, it was our shared values!
Sophie went into this knowing she she wanted to support a smaller charity with a different cause to the well-known big names.
She was attracted to GFS because our aim to build confidence in young girls really resonated with her. Plus, our trans inclusive statement checked off an important box for her as well.
We really live our values and to us, drawing fundraisers like Sophie who feel so strongly about them is a huge positive in our minds. When it came down to fundraising for the race, Sophie knew it would be difficult with her busy schedule, so she thought creatively.
She started early, so as to fit it around her work commitments and she got her employers at The Pie News to matchfund her donations. Here’s a few more of Sophie’s fundraising tips:
- Starting early, especially if you know that you’d be busy with work.
- Sharing on multiple social media channels, as different people use different platforms.
- Go international! Ask friends and family in other countries to donate.
- Look for what you have that could be raffled – Sophie held a raffle of some vintage NFL hats in a Fantasy NFL League she’s in, which raised over £100.
At the end of the day, our LLHM runners all achieved amazing personal goals while raising funds for our girls along the way. That’s exactly what we want! When you take on a challenge event for GFS, we don’t want it to be scary and overwhelming, we want a positive experience for everyone.
So, if you’re interested in taking on a challenge event for GFS, visit our fundraising section to find out about our half-priced slots in your area. Or create your own challenge and set up a JustGiving page.
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