Peak District UltraChallenge 2024 – opening a new fundraising drive

Harry’s Dad, Matt, spent the weekend of 6-7 July out on the hills around Bakewell, not far from where he grew up. He was far from alone – almost 3,000 people started the Peak District Ultra Challenge, covering distances ranging from 10km to 100km, the vast majority doing so to raise funds for charity. The organisers claimed over £800,000 had been raised before the starting hooter went and forecast that the event would generate well over £1 million in all for a wide range of good causes. Some people really did it the hard way, like Daniel Fairbrother from Stevenage who carried a fridge the full 100km without a break to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital. Others Matt chatted to along the way were raising funds for some well-known charities like the British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK, and some much less well-known ones supporting local hospices or ‘rare disease’ charities (including Vasculitis UK, who the family raised funds for after Harry’s Grandma Lownds’ death in 2016 from microscopic polyangiitis).

Matt was one of the 420 finishers in the ‘100km continuous challenge’ – walking through the night to complete it in a little over 23 hours, half an hour faster than last year.  Although the weather was relatively kind to participants (while London and the South East saw a month’s rainfall inside two days), nearly a quarter of those starting dropped out along the at-times-gruelling route.  Matt’s aim was to kick-start a planned year-long family fundraising effort to collect £20,000 to continue the scholarship established at Sussex University in memory of Harry.  Our goal now is to build on the fundraising after Harry’s death to ensure that the scholarship can continue for at least another five years – celebrating Harry’s life by ‘paying forward’ the love and support that friends and family have offered us since his death.

Thank you for reading – and for your support to Harry’s scholarship.

(Harry’s Mum, Becky, presenting Matt with
his finisher’s medal at 06:10 on Sunday morning)

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