Hitch to Amsterdam for Charity
St Christopher’s Inns and Belushi’s are proud to be sponsoring the Hitch Hike to Amsterdam in aid of HOPE for Children. On Saturday March 21, 2009 students from the London School of Economics will be blagging rides to Belushi’s in Amsterdam to raise much needed funds for HOPE.
Story Highlights
- The Story of HOPE
- How St Christopher’s are Helping
- How to Help and Where The Money Goes
- The Students Behind It
The Story of HOPE
HOPE is an international children’s charity working with disabled, orphaned and exploited children in thirty countries worldwide, including the UK. As a charity HOPE guarantees that 100% of all public donations go directly to projects on the ground. This low-cost ethos has been HOPE for Children’s guiding principle since it was founded. The charity was in fact set up to help the most needy in grassroots-level projects.
How St Christopher’s are Helping
St Christopher’s Inns and Belushi’s are putting a whopping cheque towards this cause and we’re urging all of you to help us raise the £50,000 that HOPE have set their sights on. As a company we’re also giving the first hitch hiker to make it to the dam, a free weekend of accommodation at out newly built, backpacker base in Paris!
Better yet the hitcher who raises the most money for HOPE will win him or herself a free Surf and Stay package at our hostel and surf school in Newquay! On top of all that everyone hitchhiker involved will get majorly cut price accommodation at our unique art installation hostel and hotel, when they arrive in Amsterdam!
How to Help and Where The Money Goes
Before the good times can be had, we need to raise some serious cash and for this purpose a special Just Giving page has been set up. All we ask is that you take a trip to justgiving.com/hitchforhopeforchildren and donate what you can. Also if you can, tell your friends and see if they can spare a few pennies too.
Let’s put this in another context - if everyone involved can donate just £5 or £10, we can hit and even exceed our target of £50,000! Together we can really make a huge difference for children worldwide. Every single penny donated is guaranteed to go straight to the projects. Just £10 will feed a child for a month, £20 will provide a play kit for a children’s centre, £80 will provide a prosthesis for child land-mine amputee and £500 could cover the running costs of a school, or nursery - for a whole month!
If you want to see an example of HOPE’s work in action - including how they’re providing prosthetic limbs to children disabled by landmines in Sri Lanka, special equipment for disabled children in the UK, funding for street children centres in Uganda, India and the Philippines, and help for abandoned children in Bulgaria, please take a look at HOPE’s website - hope-for-children.org
The Students Behind It
But what about the guys involved in this hitch hike we hear you cry? Well we caught up with Jess, Anna and Youseff from the London School of Economics, all set to hike to the city of sin in March.
Jess – how would you summarise the hitch hike?
47 Students will be hitching their way from London to Amsterdam in pairs - blagging any and every type of ride to make it there without spending any money on transport! According to Google - London to Amsterdam is 334 miles and the average journey time is 6 hours and 7 minutes, but maybe not if you're hitching! Instead you should add a few additional hours and loads of great, life long memory making moments - and then you'll be much closer to reality!
Why are you doing it?
Jess: It's a fun way to raise money for charity – it’s cheap, you get to meet great people and you really get to see a different side to travelling! There’s a lot of team spirit and a sense of great pride when you get to your destination! It’s definitely not the fastest means of travel but it’s certainly the most memorable and people get really behind you en-route!
Also it's a university tradition and depending on sponsorship, it tends to raise a lot of money for good causes. To take part this year each participant must raise a minimum of £40 - which means that the minimum amount that we’ll raise is £1880. On top of all this the event will raise awareness for the charity we support!
Anna: I got involved in the hitch hike because I think it's a dynamic and effective means of engaging interest in the charity - both within the university and among the public, who are going to be helping our hitch hikers along the way. Hopefully this excitement will motivate further awareness and fundraising!
Youseff: I’d already hitched from Bath to Paris when I was at Bath University so we figured it was best to try somewhere new - hence Amsterdam!
How much do you hope to raise - Jess?
A minimum of £1880 but beyond that - as much as possible with support from everyone who makes a donation to HOPE for Children.
And after Amsterdam what’s next?
Well from July 2009 I’ll be spending eight weeks volunteering full-time for HOPE, working to help some of the most impoverished children in the World - to help children with AIDS, orphans and slum-dwelling children in Mpalo, Zambia.
Through care-giving, a lot of love, teaching and development we can help provide practical aid, affection and attention, to combat tremendous poverty and neglect, that these children currently have to face every day. I have to raise £2,500 to help in Zambia, so if you can help me out in this too, please do at justgiving.com/jessicacartwright1
Thanks.
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