11th November 2024
On the 31st October, our amazing young boxers organised a 12 hour Skipathon, where at least one person was always skipping in the BPT boxing gym, from 9am to 9pm.
Over the course of the day, a vast range of groups and individuals were involved in this amazing initiative, with nearly 200 different people skipping across the 12 hours. Up to 50 young people from our October Half Term Programme took part, where we incorporated skipping as part of their activities, holding competitions where prizes were given out to the best skippers.
Plenty of BPT partners were involved throughout the day as well, with 3 Pillars and Fight 4 Change participants taking part during both of their sessions. Fight 4 Change sent over some of their Lambeth Young Advisors, who managed to skip for a full hour straight! We even had the brilliant JP, the Mayor of Lambeth himself, who came down as a special guest. The Mayor took part in a pad work session and skipped wearing his official mayoral chains!
Thank you as well for the support of our local pub, The Jolly Gardeners, who not only provided a generous donation, but also delivered us a special package on the day to keep us going! We were visited by one of their staff members, Carolyn Redmond, who is also a professional boxer. Carolyn brought us a large bag of drinks to keep everyone energised throughout the day, and she also took part in the skipping herself.
A massive thank you as well to Share Community, who not only got their students involved with the skipping at various points in the day, but they also put on a special free lunch to support all those who took part. Their amazing food kept everyone in high spirits and made sure we were all properly fuelled to skip the full 12 hours!
The biggest thank you of all though, goes to young lads who put the whole thing together. Joshua, Celestino, Nyron and Rhys are all boxers for Don Davis and they planned this initiative from the very beginning. Since they are so passionate and proud about their boxing club, they felt inspired to start this fundraiser and over the last few weeks they have done a remarkable job. Not only did they skip for several hours throughout the day, but they also put weeks of preparation into the fundraiser, promoting it across the local community.
Thanks to their efforts, we have nearly doubled our target and have raised almost £2k for Don Davis Boxing Academy. This money will ensure that Don Davis can continue to do their amazing work of supporting young boxers in our local community.
We are still accepting donations, so please support if you can using the link below!
