Chiswick Pre-schoolers Back Charity Cycle Marathon

Fund-raising group make pit-stop at local nursery

Cyclists on a 767 mile charity cycle ride made a pit-stop at a day nursery in Chiswick to cheer on pre-schoolers who have gone ‘wheely mad’ in support of the fund-raising marathon.

While the team – colleagues of staff at the Devonshire Day Nursery in Bennett Street - are completing up to 70 miles a day on English roads, staff and children have been completing their own sponsored marathon events in the garden doing ‘laps’ on bikes, trikes scooters and buggies.

As Devonshire Manager, Dee Townsend, explained the fund-raising push to raise £50,000 for a children’s outside play area at a major hospital has everybody on the move with £344 raised so far.

“We are surrounded by happy, confident and healthy children every day at nursery and can see how important an imaginative outdoor play area is to their development. It is even more important for children undergoing traumatic treatments in hospital and their families supporting them on site,” she said, praising staff and parents for their tireless support.

Children of all ages made flags decorated with wheels and cheered loudly as the cyclists – who have cycled 233 miles since the start in Bath – made their pit-stop at the nursery. Moroccan cous cous and a variety of snacks and drinks were provided in each of the age-appropriate rooms which the cyclists visited before leaving on the next leg of the 767 mile journey.

The funds raised will fund an outside play area for young patients and their visiting siblings at the new Princess Eugenie House in the grounds of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital.

Cyclists on the ‘M and M Challenge’ (Miles House Day Nursery in Bath to Meadow View Day Nursery in Buckinghamshire) have been cycling between each of the 47 day nurseries in the award-winning, employee-owned Childbase Partnership as part of 25 th Birthday celebrations for the company.

Childbase Partnership CEO and founder, Mike Thompson, and Operations Director, Lynda Gostelow, who began her career with the company as a practitioner 25 years ago, are leading the cyclists who will be completing up to 90 miles a day over two weeks.

Colleagues have been joining the team for regional sections of the marathon and each nursery visited has hosted their own sponsored events to boost fund-raising for the charity.

The Sue Andrews Foundation – a charitable organisation established in memory of a Childbase Partnership Director who died last year – selected this cause for the big fund-raising drive.

August 13, 2014