Worcestershire Young Farmers reach £13,500 with their pedal power for local charities

Worcestershire Young Farmers ditched four wheels back in May to travel to the National Federation’s Annual General Meeting in Blackpool by bicycle in a bid to raise £10,000 for local charities The Worcester Samaritans and Cancer Research UK.

County Chairman Helen Harcombe and a team of 16 other members set off from Blackpole on Tuesday, 30 April and cycled 214 miles across the National Cycle Network before arriving at Blackpool Tower on Friday, 3 May.

 “Cancer Research is a charity close to our Federation’s heart. After the passing of a member last year to the disease it was a unanimous decision to raise funds for this charity,” said Helen.

With 50% of funds raised also going to Samaritans’ Worcester branch, she added; “It’s been a challenging time for farmers over the last 12 months, both economically and due to the poor weather we’ve suffered. As a rural youth organisation we have become increasingly aware of the challenges individuals and businesses face.

“All of the money raised for Samaritans will fund their call centre. We hope that it will also raise awareness of their services and the support they can provide.”

Six of Worcestershire’s nine clubs were represented by their members and the team consisted of cyclists of varying experience.

 “For all of our cyclists, completing this challenge was a huge achievement. The whole event, from the planning stage to the actual challenge itself, has been a real team effort.” Helen Harcombe noted.

The cyclists managed to pull together and not only achieve their goal of all arriving safely in Blackpool but by smashing their target goal of £10,000 and managing to raise an astounding £13,500 which has been split equally between the two chosen charities.

Worcester Samaritans Branch Director Michael “ We would like to express our immense gratitude to Worcestershire Young Farmers for their very kind donation of £6750, It was such an amazing amount and I promise it will make a huge difference to so many. We very much hope all the Young Farmers will come and see how the money has been spent once we are up and running in our new building. Thank you so much to Helen and her team for completing such a challenging feat.”

A representative from Cancer Research UK explains “The donation given to us by WFYFC is such a tremendous amount and will go towards research work carried out locally on many different kinds of cancers that so often these days affects us and our loved ones. Thank you so much to all the cyclists and supporters, without people like yourselves we would not be able to carry out such vitally important research.”

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