Wigan Tri Club have a thriving junior section ran by volunteers. To keep the junior section going, they constantly need equipment and replacement spares for their fleet of children’s bikes. We donated £300 to help them buy spare tyres, tubes and other parts for the Wigan Tri Club junior bikes.

Pictured is the chairman looking very ‘tyred’ as he failed miserably to complete a hula hoop routine. Find out more about Wigan Tri Club at http://www.WiganTriathlonClub.co.uk

Following a stunning day for our Lakeland 100 recce day from Buttermere to Dalemain a couple of weekends ago, we saw a facebook post from one of our #LakelandFamily members, Mark Willett, and it highlighted to us the reasons why we run.

Mark is part of Lakeland 100 event history as he is the man who bumped into Paul Potts, near the Chapel Stile checkpoint, humming Nessun Dorma (none shall sleep). This lead to a great story at the race presentation and the result was that, the following year, we adopted the tune as our race anthem and now have a classical singer perform it live at the Lakeland 100 start.

The facebook post we saw explained that Mark’s wonderful little boy was recently diagnosed with cancer following a short illness. He is under the excellent care of the team at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. Mark and his family have set up a fundraising page to raise money for the Children’s Hospital to help ensure that other children can benefit from the same care.

The Lakeland 100 team donated all the proceeds from the recce day on behalf of all the Lakeland 100 runners to Mark’s Just Giving page to support their fundraising.

The Lakeland 100 donated £280 and in addition Epic Kidz have added to the total and donated £720 to bring the total donated to £1000.

You can find their Just Giving page HERE.

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#JacobsJoin

Keswick Junior Tri Club will be 2 years old in April. They have 45 junior members from 7 years old to 16 years old. The club actively encourage their junior members to help and support each other and they currently have 6 of their older juniors who have completed their Tri Youth Activators award with the BTF so they can get involved in helping deliver training sessions along side the clubs 8 coaches.

During winter, the club focus on pool swim sessions, transition training and strength/conditioning sessions. They hold aquabike challenges to keep the children interested and having fun. They also practice bike skills so will often ride out along the local railway path or in the woods. It’s great fun for the children as it’s “dark” but, as a result, the club need to invest in decent bike lights to light up the trail.

Once Spring/Summer arrives, the children move into open water training once the lake is warm enough. The juniors can often be found swimming round Derwent Island!

Epic Kidz has donated £500 to the Keswick Juniors so that they can purchase their much needed bike lights to help the children enjoy their winter riding and stay motivated until Spring finally arrives.

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1st Oswaldtwistle Scout Group is one of the oldest Scout Groups in the UK. Based in the northern town of Oswaldtwistle, they are a small but active troop, taking part in various outdoor activities and actively fundraising to help keep their scout group going.

The scout group take part in numerous weekend trips away and attend regular camps. The troop have been recently fundraising to purchase a new gazebo which will be great for when they are away at camp or undertaking their outdoor trips.

Epic Kidz donated £500 to the 1st Oswaldtwistle Scout Group so that they can purchase their new gazebo ready for the summer.

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Flic Flac Gymnastics Club was founded in 2001 and now has around 250-300 members ranging from 2 years old through to adults. The Flic Flac team has competed in many competitions over the years, gaining an impressive medal haul and trophy collection.

Over the last 5 years, Flic Flacs has represented the UK in the USA IAIGC World Championships. To achieve this, the girls had to work incredibly hard, competing at regional and national level, to achieve a qualifying score to gain entry into the World Championships.

This year Flic Flac has 20 gymnasts from the club representing them at the World Championships in Florida. Whilst the parents of the gymnasts are funding the travel & accommodation for the trip, Flic Flacs is undertaking a major fundraising effort to raise the money for the gymnasts competition entry fees and all their travel/competition kit. They need to raise over £11,000.00.

Epic Kidz has donated £500 which will help to purchase some of the girls travel kit.

We wish all the girls good luck at the World Championships and look forward to hearing how they all get on.

#EpicKidz

Last year we were introduced to The Zappi Racing Team, lead by ex professional Italian cyclist Flavio Zappi. Via the Dave Hitchen Fund we were able to help them fund their February camp in Calpe. The team had a fantastic season on the continent in 2017 with many race wins as well as numerous individual and team placements. The impressive team of junior riders is continuing into 2018 and now includes junior ladies, boys and U23 teams.

The Zappi Racing Teams include national level riders from the North West, Yorkshire and Central region. The juniors will be racing at both a National and International level for this upcoming season.

Unsurprisingly the funding required to be able to compete at such a high level across the continent is costly and Epic Kidz have provided a £500 Dave Hitchen Grant to assist with the travel costs/race fees.

Find out more about the Zappi team at HERE.

#FastHitch

The Montane Lakeland 100 competitors raise thousands of pounds for the Epic Kidz charity. Every July runners take part in this iconic event by completing either 50 or 100 (105) miles around the Lake District. Along the way the runners pass through 14 checkpoints manned entirely by volunteers. We have asked all of the checkpoint owners & managers from the 2017 event to nominate a group or charity to receive an Epic Kidz donation. Over the next few months we will be blogging about all the donations made to all the good causes nominated by our Lakeland 100 family.

This weeks donation was nominated by the infamous, Cheshire based, Delamere Spartans. This impressive running club manage the Mardale checkpoint on the Lakeland 100 and they have nominated the Joshua Tree to receive a £500 donation.

The Joshua Tree is a charity that supports families across the North West living with the life-changing experience of childhood cancer. They are now supporting over 100 families in the North West who have been affected by childhood cancer. They also work with new families in North Wales via their new family support team which they hope to develop during 2018. By the end of this year the Joshua Tree will have delivered over 2000 support sessions to families which include tutoring, play and art therapy, health, fitness and counselling.

The Joshua Tree will be putting the £500 donation towards helping one of their families currently in crisis. It will help enable them to be supported during an incredibly traumatic time.

You can find out more about this great charity HERE

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#LakelandFamily