Fundraising for our partner charity, OPERA!
Posted by on 14/07/2017
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Melanie Surfraz speaks on her experience during the 24 hour fundraiser for The OPERA Global Youth Foundation:
"We wanted to do something that would really turn heads to raise awareness for Opera. We decided to travel as far away from the office without any money and rack up as much mileage as we could in 24 hours.
The challenge started at 13:30 on Thursday 6th July and it finished at the same time the next day – it doesn’t sound long and although it was fun, it was honestly really difficult. We started off by walking an hour over to St Pancras International where we managed to get onto a Eurostar train – they completely understood the challenge and were more than happy to help. We arrived in Paris later on that evening and after hours of walking around in Central Paris we decided to hunker down for the night and try again in the morning. In the morning we talked our way onto a random train going south which terminated at a small town called Malsherbes. At this point we had 2 hours left to rack up some more mileage, so we just started walking as far as we could until it hit 13:30! There was nothing but empty fields for miles – it was beautiful.
Aside from the stagnant 35 degree heat we had a great time - we were always on the same wave-length and kept each other in high spirits.
Once the challenge was over we hung around Paris a bit to see the Eiffel tower and even try our first snail (which was actually amazing). It was such a great way to get to know colleagues more outside of the office! Even though we didn’t hit our ambitious goal, which was Italy, I wouldn’t change any part of that trip & will remember it for a very long time. We are already tempted to start planning the next one!
We managed to raise £800 which is massive for a 24 hour trip!! Thank you to everyone who donated, it really is going to a great cause."
You can find out more about The OPERA Global Youth Foundation on their website: www.weareopera.com