Energie Fitness gym has built on the success of their huge Willen Hospice fundraiser (which swelled the charity coffers by more than £14k in 48 hours with a virtual relay) and this time extended a charity hand to Harry’s Rainbow.
The Rainbow mission is to support children and families suffering from bereavement in Milton Keynes.
“We know that Harry’s Rainbow is a much loved charity and do great work in our community,” says energie Fitness club owner Rob Francis. “Like other charities they have been badly hit by this current Covid crisis. So we wanted to support Odette Mould and her small team by getting our awesome members and residents of MK on an interactive mission to climb as many stairs as we possibly could over one weekend.
"We know that one standard set of stairs is 2.8 vertical metres high- so we aimed to climb the equivalent of Everest the highest mountain in the world.”
During last weekend's event more than 130 people climbed staircases in their homes, and at popular MK beauty spots Campbell Park and Willen Lake. Participants ranged from as young as 2 years to 72 years old.
“It was a wicked idea that we came up with the help of the team from energie and we totally smashed our goals! We anticipated that the cumulative stair climbs would be the equivalent of climbing the 8,900 metres to reach the top of Everest........ but we ended up doing that easily!" said Odette.
"In fact we “virtually” climbed the biggest five mountains in the world plus the famous Three Peaks in the U.K.
“I was personally exhausted but totally exhilarated by my hour of climbing at the Peace Pagoda, and it was amazing to see others follow my suit and get out in the fresh air for their stair climbs too. All together we climbed over 16,000 flights of stairs which is over 45,000 vertical metres of climbing!”
energie aren't content to leave the fundraising there - and next on the agenda is a weekend of fun fitness classes to raise funds for Milton Keynes Hospital.
To get a feel for the fun and atmosphere on the two day stair climb challenge check out the video here
