Kidscan Cancer Research Charity, in Salford, is hoping people will get involved in their ‘Step for Science’ event to raise £10,000.
Kidscan is a Salford children’s cancer research charity that funds and manages research into new and improved treatments for children with cancer.
Unfortunately, 25% of children diagnosed with cancer won’t make it past their 30th birthday and many survivors suffer from life-long and life-limiting side effects.
The community fundraising manager at Kidscan, Alison England, explains in more detail exactly what Kidscan is all about in the video below.
As with all research charities, Kidscan does not receive any government funding and instead rely on contributions from the public and businesses.
Since the Coronavirus pandemic hit a year ago, all face-to-face fundraising was put on hold – something which Alison admits has impacted the charity ‘hugely’.
She said: “We have amazing supporters in the community that do their own fundraising, so there were charity days planned and bake sales, but all of that was gone so it was a huge shock to us and a huge strain on the charity.
“When the first lockdown happened everybody was helping the NHS, and Sir Tom [Moore] and everybody was being inundated with different fundraisers, so we kind of held back.
“This year we are hoping our virtual events will pick up and we can only keep our fingers crossed and hope that people will want to get behind us.”
One of the online events is ‘Step for Science’ which kicks off on March 22 and will last 10 days, until March 31.
It is hoped that participants will find sponsors as they aim to walk 10,000 steps per day, over the course of 10 days, to help raise £10,000.
Alison said: “Now we are allowed out a little bit more and the weather is a bit nicer this might encourage people to get up, be a bit more active and raise money for our charity as well.
“10,000 steps is what most people aim to do anyway when they have got steps on their phone or their Fitbit.
“Your entire family could get involved and we have a platform where you sign up to take part and you are given a fundraising page.
“You can then set this up to your Strava account or you can manually go in and log how many steps you have done and share it with your family and friends to raise money that way.”
Every £2,000 that is raised will pay for a student placement and anyone who contributed towards this milestone will receive information about the research project they are funding.
“We have one student focussing on a particular element within the drug that causes heart failure and heart disease.
“So, their whole project will be around focussing on that very small element within the chemotherapy to try to change it to be still as impactful as the chemotherapy but not as damaging to a child’s body,” Alison explained.
You can sign up for Step for Science by clicking here in preparation for March 22.
“It is easy, it is achievable, it is not asking people to run a marathon or jump out of a plane, it is family-friendly and everybody can get involved from the children to the grandparents.
“I always say it is ordinary people doing extraordinary things!
“It is just a bit of fun and know that you are potentially changing the lives of children in the future who will go through such a horrific thing like cancer but then have to deal with the side effects after that.
“If you think about these kids that it is affecting it does make you want to get up and do something every day,” Alison said.
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