Over the next 26 weeks, while Ritchie takes on his incredible 26 Week Sleep Rough Challenge for Steps to Hope, Ray will be taking on a challenge of his own: hiking a peak every week and creating a poem inspired by Ritchie's reflections, experiences and weekly posts.

The idea grew from something much more personal. During Ritchie's previous 5 and 8 week sleep rough campaigns, Ray and Ritchie shared poems privately on a daily basis. As those challenges unfolded, many people on Facebook expressed an interest in hearing them, and this felt like the perfect opportunity to share that journey with a wider audience.

Each week, Ray will hike a different peak, write a brand-new poem inspired by that week's story, and record or deliver it from the summit. He hopes the poems will capture the challenges, hope, resilience and humanity behind the campaign while giving supporters another way to follow the journey.

With the support of friends, colleagues and local businesses, we're also hoping to hold football card prize draws and other fundraising activities from the peaks throughout the challenge.

We're asking people to support Ray's efforts by either:

Sponsoring the challenge for the full 26 weeks

Sponsoring individual peaks along the way

Making a one-off donation, however big or small

Since 2020, our collective fundraising efforts have generated more than £160,000 of support for Steps to Hope, helping the charity grow from its roots in rented accommodation in Edinburgh to the creation of its own purpose-built treatment centre in West Lothian.

This challenge represents one final push to help Steps to Hope raise funds for its ambitious five-bedroom extension project, providing additional support and recovery opportunities for those who need it most.

Every donation will help make a difference.

26 weeks. 26 peaks. 26 poems. One goal: helping Steps to Hope change lives.