UNIVERSITY NEWS LAST UPDATED : 01 MAY 2020
Project Manager for ARCO Alistair Rutherford took on the 2.6 Challenge last weekend, raising over £800 for the ARCO Project.
Alistair was due to run the London Marathon on Sunday 26 April, but following its cancellation, revamped his challenge to continue to raise funds.
The 2.6 Challenge was created to support charities who had lost fundraising due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The London Marathon alone, the world’s biggest one-day fundraising event, raised more than £66.4 million for thousands of charities in 2019.
The challenge can be any activity – from running 2.6 miles to holding an online workout with 26 friends.
Alistair challenged himself to run five miles in 26 minutes and 26 seconds, in order to raise £260. For every second over that time, Alistair pledged to donate £1, as an added incentive. He finished the challenge just shy of his target at 26 minutes and 57 seconds, so donated and then doubled the difference. His fundraising effort now stands at over £800, which will support the ARCO Project, a distance-learning project between the Conservatoire and the Morris Isaacson Centre for Music in Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Established in 2015, the project supports talented children in South Africa with weekly individual instrumental lessons, mentoring and string quartet coaching, delivered by a group of current students and recent graduates from the Conservatoire via video conferencing platform, Zoom.
Alistair said: “I understand many people will prioritise donations for the NHS currently, but understanding all charities are struggling right now is important.
“With distance learning on the tip of everyone’s tongue right now, it’s an opportunity to raise some much-needed awareness for BCU and RBC’s distance learning output, while creating much needed funding for ARCO.”
Donations can still be made via Alistair’s Justgiving page.