Hooray!!! I've achieved my target but that doesn't mean that Hope UK has enough money!! I would love to get to £30,000 now that I've made the £27K target.....There (sadly) is always more drug education work to do so please help if you can.

And,,, Thanks for visiting my fundraising page for the Mount Toubkal trek. The photograph opposite was taken on June 11th, on top of Mount Toubkal, the highest mountain in North Africa (13,500 feet high). With me is Ian Wilkins, also raising funds for Hope UK. We were on day 5 of a six-day trek....and were on the mountain for 11 hours before returning to the Toubkal refuge. It was physically the toughest day I can remember.

This trek (which I went on with Ian, a friend who is also a Hope UK voluntary Drug Educator) was one where we paid the costs ourselves, so that every penny raised went to the charity. It has also turned into a 'thank offering' for my 24 years employment as Hope UK's Chief Executive.  I'm stepping down at the end of June because of the economic situation. So please help if you can. Read on if you want to learn more about what we do.

Hope UK's mission to enable young people to make drug-free choices is a vital one in a society where more attention needs to be paid to preventing harm. Up to 1.3 million children suffer because of their parent's alcohol consumption (in England) and over 100,000 people are dying early because of their smoking (in the UK). Stats like this demonstrate the need to work with children and young people as well as those adults who have responsibility for them.

Hope UK is unique because we  train volunteers to work in their communties. I want to raise enough money to pay for the ongoing support of 50 of our existing volunteers or - to put it another way - a year's salary for one of my colleagues in our training team because they do a brilliant job of encouraging and supporting these individuals. We have great plans to increase the number of voluntary Educators from 200 (they reached over 100,000 children and young people last year) to 1,000 so we can effectively cover the whole country.

Donating through Justgiving is quick, easy and totally secure. It’s also the most efficient way to sponsor me: Hope UK gets your money faster and, if you’re a UK taxpayer, Justgiving makes sure 25% in Gift Aid, plus a 3% supplement, are added to your donation.

So please sponsor me now!

Thank you for reading this.

George

PS I shall continue my link with Hope UK as I will become a volunteer Educator when I leave.