Friends have a right scoot with fundraising busway challenge
Phil Thomas, Gary Mansfield, Si Goodchild, Danny Gilson, Jon Goodchild, Alex Watts, Andrew Conway and Andy Oxborough. - Credit: Archant
A dad from Grafham helped raise more than £1,000 for a school after using his scooter to travel the length of the guided busway.
Jon Goodchild, of Field Close, hopped on a scooter with a group of seven friends to travel the 15-mile route from St Ives to Cambridge, all in aid of Samuel Pepys School, in St Neots.
The 38-year-old scooted the route to say ‘thank you’ to those who have helped his disabled son Ethan, 7, while he has been at the school.
Mr Goodchild said: “When I told my closest friends that I was out to raise money for Ethan and his friends, they all jumped at the chance to get involved. I’m genuinely lucky to have such good mates who want to show their support, and have done since Ethan was born with his many challenges.”
Money raised will be used by the school to buy balance bikes for pupils to use around the school’s go kart track.
Mr Goodchild said: “We did get a few funny looks when we rode past people – I think they thought we were a bunch of blokes having a midlife crisis and trying to regain our youth.
“It was obviously pretty tiring, but given we had each other there and were laughing along the way it actually went quite quickly.”
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The group managed to complete the 14.7-mile route in less than two hours.
Mr Goodchild said that about £1,400 had been raised and he was now in talks with the school to find out which scooters and balance bikes the children would like.
He added: “I am over the moon that we were able to help and we are already thinking about what the next fundraising challenge could be as Samuel Pepys is a fantastic school and they deserve all the help and fundraising we can offer.”
If you would like to donate, log on to: www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/scouting-for-scooters.