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27th June 2015
Total Warrior
Bramham Park, Leeds
Team Banks Group
Super-fit staff at North East property and energy firm the Banks Group have completed a pair of physical fundraising challenges in aid of a North East charity which works with children and young people with disabilities.
After completing both the Druridge Bay 10K run on the Northumberland coast last month, the 16-strong Banks team headed to Leeds to take on the gruelling Total Warrior event.
Held in the grounds of Bramham Park, Total Warrior was run over a 12 kilometre course featuring 30 punishing obstacles, including the intimidatingly-named Human Barbecue, Shocker and Ice Bath.
But despite everything thrown in their way, all the members of the Banks team made it round, raising more than £2,400 for the staff’s charity of the year, Integrating Children, in the process, and taking the total amount raised for it in the first six months of the year to over £9,200.
Based in Chester-le-Street, Integrating Children aims to involve children and young people aged between six and 25 years old with a range of disabilities and learning difficulties in mainstream activities which can help them build key life skills and friendships, improve confidence, and enable them to interact better with others.
The organisation works with up to 100 children and young people a year and offers over ten thousand activity hours per annum during both term time and school holidays.
Activities are organised between Integrating Children’s staff, the young people in question and their families, and include individual and team sports, music, rowing, going to the cinema or theatre, shopping trips, or going as a group to a restaurant.
Durham-based Workwear Express, the UK’s leading supplier of embroidered and printed clothing and a regular supplier of workwear to the Banks Group, supported the fundraising efforts by donating branded T-shirts for the team members to wear during Total Warrior.
Lewis Stokes, who organised the Banks team’s participation in the Total Warrior event, says: “It’s safe to say that Total Warrior was unlike anything that any of us has ever seen before, and it wasn’t long before all of us were caked in mud and soaked to the skin, but the camaraderie between all the competitors was fantastic and it was a great feeling to get everyone over the line even though we are all sporting various bumps and bruises!
“Both the financial and moral support we’ve had from friends, family and colleagues through these fundraising challenges has been wonderful, and we’re also very grateful to Workwear Express for kitting us out so well for Total Warrior.
“Raising £9,2000 in just six months is a great achievement by everyone involved, and there’s plenty more to come in the second half of the year.”
For more information on supporting Integrating Children, visitwww.integratingchildren.co.uk or follow @IntChildren on Twitter.