When we (Carole King and Sue Tilt) originally talked about doing this challenge for Tulips/Help Those with Cancer Association, neither of us had the slightest idea of how very successful this challenge would be. However we agreed that any money raised for Tulips is money that is so much needed by the Association to help Cancer patients, so we talked about the possibility of raising 5,000 to 6,000TL.
We then thought it would be a good idea to put a call out for other volunteers to join us in this challenge, thinking that we would be lucky to get one or two volunteers at the most. As the volunteers rolled in we began aiming for a target for 10,000TL and as a few more volunteers joined us we thought that maybe we could achieve a massive 20,000TL!
On the 1st September 2016 we started our challenge with 27 ‘Steppers’ including ourselves participating, however 3 had to drop out for personal reasons. Therefore 24 of us were now challenging ourselves to walk 10,000 steps a day (5miles/8kms) throughout the month of September (with 2 ladies who couldn’t join us in September tackling their challenge in October). The aim of all our Steppers was to get as many sponsors and as much money as we could.
This was a one-off event with no additional events to help boost the funds and yet still the group managed to raise such an incredible sum of money, it is truly amazing that the total amount raised by just 24 people is a staggering 61,000TL!
To think that this fund raiser came about completely by ‘accident’. This was because
Sue’s sister (Gill Powell) based in the UK, asked Sue to be her Fitbit buddy whilst she embarked on the very same challenge for Cancer Research UK. Gill’s son Theo, aged 8yrs, also had committed to walking 10,000 steps every Sunday! We (Carole and Sue) thought that here was an ideal opportunity to raise funds for Tulips at the same time.
The success of this event has floored even us; the group has averaged over 2500TL per person, making this the most successful fundraiser we have ever completed. As Raziye Kocaismail said, each ‘Stepper’ has individually helped 5 cancer patients and that is something that every one of our Steppers should be proud of and Raziye thanks you all from the bottom of her heart on behalf of the cancer patients that you have helped.
We must say a huge thank you to each and every ‘Stepper’ who participated, to all our sponsors both large and small, to Starting Point in Lefkoşa for providing the bottles of bubbly for each ‘Stepper’ who completed the challenge and to Tulips/HTWCA who backed us all the way because without you all we could not have managed to reach this amazing figure.
Best wishes
Carole and Sue