Hi friends.

Archie and I have been given the most amazing, once in a lifetime volunteering opportunity, to participate in the Hepworth and Memusi Football Programme 2025 in Kenya!

We have funded our flights and we are now fundraising for the cost of the activities that we will be involved with in Kenya, the materials needed whilst there and money towards our very basic accommodation and food.

Memusi foundation was founded by our friend and neighbour who also happens to be Archie’s football coach. His vision when visiting Kenya many years ago was to offer free, accessible education to children in order to combat poverty. 2 thriving schools and an abundance of amazing community projects later, Memusi Foundation is reaching out to more children, families and communities throughout Kenya.

Archie and some of his football team from Hepworth Juniors Under 15s will travel to Kenya in July 2025 for a weeks’ volunteering. I am volunteering as surrogate Mum for the group of lads too!

Archie and his team mates will volunteer at the school engaging all children in a range of sporting programmes as well as helping with many other existing projects. They will also have a day working with the thousands of street children who endure colossal hardship on a daily basis as they literally fight for survival. I’m hoping that I can use my expertise to help educate on difficult subjects including FGM which still continues to be a common practice in parts of Africa.

We imagine that this will be an incredibly humbling experience and one which will shape Archie’s future aspirations and dreams whilst also embedding within him a greater, more empathetic understanding of third world struggles.

We are fundraising by doing odd jobs, selling things on Vinted and EBay, dog walking, baby sitting, and hosting some fun events including a discos, a family games night, a golf tournament and a table top sale. Archie has a regular cleaning job for an elderly lady and no odd job will be turned down if offered to him.

We hope you will support us a little on this fundraising journey, maybe forego your Starbucks for a day and chuck the cost of a cup of takeaway coffee into our pot?! ☕️ 😉🙏

If you’ve drawers full of clutter; old phones, clothes, jewellery, old cameras, ornaments, original Rembrandts 🤣 (anything that you want rid of) then please email us on the address below, and we will collect it from you and flog it! If you’d like your dog walking, your cat feeding, your shed tidying, a tip run doing, your glass bin recycling, your garden tidying, your car washing or vaccing (don’t judge based on the interior of my own car!! 😫🤣), then please consider us for a small donation in return for some hard graft from us! We draw the line at snake sitting (sorry if we have offended any snake enthusiasts!). 🐍

Please keep an eye on forthcoming, fundraising events which I will publish and possibly pester you about (please defriend if it gets too much!! 🥹), and thank you for reading this waffle to the end!!

Love, Archie and Jude 😘😘

jude18@sky.com