Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

We are hoping to raise funds for BMO's chosen charity in 2021 - Farms for City Children, so that we can subsidise the cost of much needed trips to farms for a group of kids from Prior Weston School in London. 

We will be running, jogging, cycling and walking just over 424 miles over the next month!

Farms for City Children welcomes children from disadvantaged communities to spend an entire week on one of their three working farms, in Gloucestershire, South Wales and Devon. The charity has been running for over 40 years and has hosted more than 100,000 children in their three farmhouses.

During their week children could be milking cows, weighing pigs, planting seeds, harvesting fruit and vegetables, mucking out barns, making cheese, pressing apples… but it is about so much more than carrying out the tasks of the day. Many children may never have left the city and will be seeing the countryside for the first time. They may never have collected a freshly laid egg or eaten vegetables straight from the garden. Most will be accomplishing things they had never tried before, and which would have scared them at first. But everyone is learning together, in a brand-new environment.

During their stay children grow their confidence, develop strong ambition, and build relationships with their classmates, teachers, and farm staff. They learn about their connection to nature, to the food they eat, and take ownership of the countryside.

The charity works with children living in some of the most densely populated areas of the country. Their criteria prioritise children who live in areas of high deprivation and who have a high uptake of Free School Meals. The charity subsidises the cost of every visit by at least 60% to ensure a visit to the farm is available to all.

We have chosen to take on this fundraising event to support children living in our community to move on from the pandemic. We will raise the funds to subsidise both trips that our local school, Prior Weston Primary School, have booked with Farms for City Children this September. One class will attend Wick Court Farm in Gloucestershire, and the other, Nethercott House in Devon.