Youth Alpha

Running the width of Ghana? Will George make it…?

George, 17, a member of HTB youth, is shortly to board a plane for Ghana.

He’s one of 17 young people to be heading to Africa for a Youth Alpha GAT.
But, here’s the challenge!

Each member needs to raise £1500; last week, George shared with us his car boot sale experience of joy, today – George tells us about his athletic, with a hint of BBQ, adventures…

“When I found out that I had to raise around £1500 to cover all of the expenses of the trip I was quite thrown by the amount. This time, India (one of our youth pastors, not the country) was on hand to help.

India arranged for everyone to run the width of Ghana cumulatively (with each team member, youth leader and other youth running 12km EACH).

I sent out personal e-mails to a number of people asking them if they wanted to sponsor me to do the run.

On Sunday 19th June, with our iPods at hand, (including Henry with his Ghanaian themed outfit), and families to cheer us on, we set out on the epic 12km run. The team warm-up, prayer in the park and lucozade got us off to a flying start.

In typical English fashion, it had been sunny for the start of the day, but as we set out it started to rain. The running conditions were great for me as there was no heat to tire me out.

The first lap of Hyde Park was probably the hardest as we weren’t familiar with the course, but by the second lap I was starting to feel the effects from not doing enough training runs, but when I ran past the point where all of the supporters were - their cheers and jumping up and down gave me a great boost.

Overall I raised roughly £500-600 from the run.

The next weekend the team put together a barbeque after the 16:30 service for the youth and students at church. By the end (with many burgers rescued) we had made a good turnover and easily passed the break-even point, making a good profit margin to go into the general fund.

Thank you so much everyone for coming! It was a great turn out and great fun!

To raise some more funds in the time that I had spare over the summer half-term I did some paid work for my mother, which included doing things such as painting slats of wood for her business and posting and packaging.

All in all I am nearly at the £1500 mark – jabs are booked – so getting set for Ghana!!”

And there you have it. We hope you found George’s stories helpful whatever you’re fund raising for?! If you’d like to find out more about what a Youth Alpha GAT involves, then click GAT.