November Magpies 150 Challenge - Blood, sweat and teas

#Magpies150Challenge

This year Maidenhead Magpies Football Club are celebrating their 150th year. As part of their celebrations, and at a time when many local charities have been terribly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, they have launched the Magpies 150 Challenge, through which they are aiming to raise at least £150,000 to support 15 Maidenhead and Windsor based charities. You can find out more about the chosen charities by visiting their website here.

GoodGym Windsor and Maidenhead are supporting this brilliant initiative by taking on a different challenge every month, each one based around the numbers 150, 15 or 1.5. In September we collectively ran over 150 miles, and in October we challenged everyone to go out on a run or walk and pick up 150+ pieces of litter.

Our November 150 Challenge

This month's challenge was to see if we could donate 150 or more items to those in need - a fitting task as we approach Christmas and a season that is all about giving. Our focus was on food banks and appeals for Christmas gifts, such as the Baby Bank's pyjama appeal.

This was a community mission which people completed on their own at any time during the month, which worked well during Lockdown. As ever, it was great to see photos and cheers coming through on the WhatsApp group and Facebook Community as people completed the challenge.

Blood, sweat and teas

In fact, to say that our runners completed the challenge would be a huge understatement.

In total we donated over 300 items.

Jen got the ball rolling right at the start of the month by taking a wagon-load (literally) of gift bags to the Baby Bank packed with pyjamas, books and treats that she had gathered during October.

Sula quickly jumped on the wagon (not literally) with an incredible donation of 98 items to the Foodshare point in Waitrose. This was not a one off for Sula. She and her neighbours have been extremely generous all year and have great plans to donate toiletries and seasonal food for December too. Another runner who coordinated food donations from neighbours was Lara, who gathered an amazing 28 items, including the biggest box of tea we've ever seen.

Well done also to Sara P, Stephan, Jess, Helen B and Anna for their generosity with Foodbank donations. This was also Anna's first GoodGym good deed, and on her run to make her donation she pushed not only a bunch of tins but also her toddler in a buggy, so please head over to her profile and give her an extra cheer!

Claire H, Tara and Paul were also incredibly generous with donations to the Baby Bank pyjama appeal. I would be surprised if there are any children's pyjamas or gift bags left in stock in Maidenhead shops now!

Amy and James Lovell also donated to the Baby Bank's appeal, and Amy had the pleasure of seeing these gifts being packed up to send to families when she joined a community mission at the Baby Bank a couple of weeks later.

Sara P knows only too well what this sea of pyjama gift bags looks like and the major operation that goes on behind the scenes to organise the bags and get them sent off to the right families, as she has volunteered at the Baby Bank an incredible 7 times this month alone. Her endless ability to think of Baby Bank run report titles is impressive, let alone the huge amount of time and energy she has given this charity this year.

A big special mention also to Fran, who donated a whopping 30 advent calendars through her children's school.

And in an 'out of the box' interpretation of the challenge Jen even gave blood!

Fundraising for the Magpies' 15 local charities

This month's challenge involved a lot of giving, so we are not expecting the participants to make further monetary donations to the #Magpies150Challenge, but if you are impressed by our efforts, then please show your support by heading over to our Just Giving page and making a contribution. Even just £1.50 would be very gratefully recieved!

You can also show your support by clicking here and signing up for the December challenge. This one is all about running in festive fancy dress and it is guaranteed to raise a smile... it's Chriiiiissstmaaaaaas!!!