Hii,

The Happy News has teamed up with our friends at Rural Respite, for a fundraising walk to raise money for The Happy News for Schools initiative and towards vital developments of Rural Respite’s outdoor well-being area which will allow them to deliver a number of completely free outdoor well-being days to those in need. With both companies working towards better well-being in the community this event is an amazing opportunity to increase the awareness of what we're both doing and hopefully raise money for two great causes! The hike will see Rural Respite’s founder, David Dunwell, and our own Niall Chartier walking 80 miles over 2 days to journey from The Happy News HQ in Chorley to the Rural Respite HQ in Kentmere, The Lake District.

The total donations will be shared equally between The Happy News and Rural Respite. Thank you so much for any amount of sponsorship you can afford to give!

The Happy News for Schools launched in September 2020 with the main aim of sending free Happy Newspapers to schools around the UK. We believe that children deserve to be hearing about the good stuff going on in the world and not constantly surrounded by terror and fear. We want to encourage and inspire children to find their own happy news and look for the kindness in their schools and communities. For every 2 newspapers we send to subscribers to send 1 free newspaper to a school and, thanks also to support from the Bupa Foundation, we’ve sent out over 36,000 newspapers to schools so far. All the money we receive at the Happy News will be used to fund newspapers for schools so, for every £100 we receive we will send 200 newspapers to schools for free.

Rural Respite is a concept that was born from an individual's love and solace found when spending time in the British outdoors. This passion, merged with a desire to inspire others to learn how to improve their own skills and health - with a particular focus on mental well-being, led to the founding of the not-for-profit in 2020. Our mission is to facilitate life-changing experiences which expand skills and inspire individuals to increase engagement with the outdoors as part of their daily lives; in a bid to help them to be healthier and happier. The global pandemic has only heightened the need for the organisation and early engagements have shown that the impact we can have on people can be truly life-changing.

This fundraiser will help the organisation in its early stages to make vital but costly developments to our outdoor well-being area in the Lake District to allow for delivery of our much-needed programmes. In return for people’s support and staying true to our mission, for every £100 we receive we commit to provide three free places on outdoor well-being days to support individuals referred by friends/family who have particularly suffered with their mental well-being during the pandemic. To put this into perspective, if we raise £1,000, we will deliver a minimum of four outdoor well-being days for approximately 8 people each time, including undertaking a referral process and sorting all the logistics etc. The provision is designed to be intimate, allowing people to reflect, relax and learn exciting skills that help us to engage our inner primitive instincts and think about how we can better look after our well-being.

To get a good look at the route we’ll be taking click on the link below:

HQ-HQ Route

Thank you so much for all your support!