UPDATE

WEEK 5-

Week 5 ended and we have walked not just from Land's End to John O' Groats, but returning down across to Northern Ireland, into Ireland, across to Wales, onto London (our Head Office), back along the south coast and popped in to see our colleagues across on the far side of Dartmoor before heading home to Totnes. Our first target was 1260 miles, then in the second week we decided to increase it to more than double to 2690 miles. Well by week 5 we have actually walked 3167 miles. Well done all of our walkers of CA South Hams!

Very importantly we have raised £2170 for our office. Thank you so much to each and every one of you that contributed your steps, km's and miles. Thank you to all that made donations which will make such a contribution to what we do in our South Hams community.

WEEK 4 -

AMAZING Week 4 of our Citizens Advice South Hams Lockdown UK walk, so far we have now jointly walked 2317 miles! Through England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Just a few hundred miles to go in our final week to get back home here in Totnes.

As many know, our service is very dependant on grants and raising funds locally which has been so difficult in this past year, as it is for all charities. So if you can help in any way at all for us to reach our final target in this last week it would be so appreciated. Thank you.

WEEK 3 -

Another incredible week with our walkers managing an astonishing 812 miles! We left Hawick, made our way to John O'Groats and have now hopped across to Glengormley, Northern Ireland. But we're not done yet, there's still many miles to cover before we're back in Totnes putting our feet up and enjoying that cream tea. Thank you very much for all of your fantastic support and donations. There's still some way to go before we reach our target - so please share with your friends and family.

WEEK 2 -

Absolutely AMAZING. We have only been walking 12 days and we have done so well, both in our steps and with all of your wonderful donations. This is such a boost to the wellbeing and health of all of our staff, volunteers and trustees who are out there enthusiastically walking. You have inspired us, so we have decided to keep on walking.

This is now truly a UK walk. Once we get to John o Groats we are going to keep going. We will be walking back home but we will first visit our CA colleagues in north and south Ireland returning across the water into north Wales. We have planned a walk route on to our Head Office of the Citizens Advice in London. After this we will return along the south coast towards home making visits along the way to more of our CA offices. Finally as we turn home into Devon we will visit our colleagues across Dartmoor and then to Totnes to put our feet up and have a scone, with cream on first of course! That will be another 1430+ miles. Phew!

So we are now setting a higher target to achieve £2690. We can do it! (with your help)

The Lockdown UK walk by South Hams Citizens Advice, Devon

Citizens Advice South Hams is a part of a UK wide, national network of advice & support service in our communities. We are all individual charities and like many charities the past year has been a very different landscape to traverse. Despite all of the changes in the way we now live and work, we have managed to continue to provide a full service for our community from the very first day of Lockdown 1.0 to today where we are in Lockdown 3.0. We work from our homes providing continuing phone, internet support and advice to all our clients. In the past year we have dealt with 10,384 issues. 4256 clients gaining a benefit of £1.08 million for our community.

It has been so difficult for us to run our usual and essential local fund-raising events, like doing our cake bakes, having our summer gatherings, running the Dartmouth kiosk, entering local events like the Dart raft race and the many local initiatives we undertake each year to personally raise funds for our South Hams office and each of our outreach offices in Ivybridge, Dartmouth, Kingsbridge.

We at SHCA are looking at our personal health and wellbeing and recognizing that we need to get our legs out from under our desks. So, we have decided to walk from Lands End to John o Groats. How are we going to do this in Lockdown? Well, every day our Volunteers, Trustees and staff like many will be out doing our daily exercise but counting every step we take and every mile we cover.

Each week we will put all of our steps together and count the miles we have covered between us, travelling a route from Lands End towards John o Groats. That route is normally 813 miles on foot but we wanted more of a challenge, so we are going to walk via 30+ Citizens Advice offices throughout England Wales and Scotland to say Hello to our colleagues. Of course, this will involve some detours from the straight and narrow and our total journey on foot is actually going to be 1260+ miles!

Each step collected will be walked by our SHCA trustees, staff and volunteers. Every donation along the way will be gratefully received and used to keep our service going in the South Hams community. Help us to reach our set target of £1260, £1 for every mile walked!