Sign up, fundraise, step and share. Easy right?
STEPtember is Australia’s leading fundraising event for health and wellbeing. 10,000 steps each day for 28 days; fundraising to make a difference to the lives of children and adults living with cerebral palsy. This year, we at Fonseka Innovations decided to partake in the fundraising event in 2 teams; competing against each other to have some friendly competition as well as fundraising and raising awareness for cerebral palsy.
Why do it?
Cerebral palsy is permanent movement disorders shown in some people, mostly starting in early childhood. People live with this disorder for years or their whole lives without having a cure. This fundraising event is a way to bring people with all different capabilities to start being active, especially promoting walking since it is an activity that most people do every day. You can complete the 10,000 steps each day doing any kind of physical activity; from walking, lifting weights, jumping on a trampoline and even playing with your dog.
The event is a good way to get your friends, family, colleagues or yourself active. With having friendly competition and getting active, you also spread the message and awareness to support adults and children living with cerebral palsy.
What it’s like to take part in this fundraising event
You can take part or contribute to STEPtember by partaking in completing 10,000 steps each day for 28 days or donating and sponsoring others who are taking part in the event. I partook in the event where my colleagues and I attempted to complete 10,000 steps each day in September.
We received lots of donations from, friends, family or people we know, supporting our journey of raising the awareness of cerebral palsy.
The first few days of the event were consistent and more than 10,000 steps were completed each day. As the event continued, the step count fluctuated. Some days I would complete 20,000 steps, others I would only complete 5,000. Things happen; injuries, you get busy, tired or things come up, we can’t always control what happens but we try and complete or make up for any steps that we have missed.
One thing that was noticeable, when you are sitting still all day, you lose track of how little you move. Although this event is to fundraise and promote awareness of people living with cerebral palsy, we also become more aware of how much we actually move each day. It is not only a way for us to give back, but it is also a way for us to get motivated to move more; being active in more ways than one.
A few steps forward
The point of this event is to get up and moving and to support people living with cerebral palsy. Yet having a few days without reaching 10,000 steps, our team of 4 still managed to complete over 1 million steps within the 28 days. We managed to keep the competition friendly and managed to collect multiple donations towards the fundraising event.
After having completed 28 days, I will continue to keep track of how many steps I complete each day. There was a realisation for how easy it is to forget to move around more during the day. In the end, STEPtember raised over $10 million and are continuing to collect more donations. The event received so many donations and successfully got people moving and successfully spread awareness of cerebral palsy.
I’ve stepped it up, now it’s your turn.
