Gym serves up a marathon tennis fundraising treat for Telford foodbank
Six members and staff from a gym served up a fundraising smasher for charity by holding a 24-hour adapted version of short tennis.
Chris Clarke, Lewis Harper, Dan Moore, Ian Jones, and father and son Gav and Cal Sermon used a boxing training pad as a racquet for the marathon round-robin tournament.
"I'm pretty tired now," said Chris, the general manager at Anytime Fitness in Gresham Drive, at Overdale, in Telford, on Sunday. "But we hit our £1,000 target before we started at 10am on Friday and had reached £1,679 so we have increased it to £2,000."
The Just Giving appeal will be running for a few more days before the gym's latest effort for Telford Crisis Support. They are also taking donations for the organisation's foodbank.
"Telford Crisis Support seems to be busier than ever," said Chris. "We have done charity events for them before."
Chris revealed that the tournament of 57 games over the 24 hour period had been pretty gruelling with only the occasional 25 minute break between round robin encounters allowing no time for sleep.
"There was plenty of stretching as we tried not to seize up!" said Chris.
But they were spurred on in the knowledge of the good work done by the foodbank in providing food and vital items for families in real need. The charity provided 120,897 meals during 2021 and continue to meet the increasing demand.
Each of the games was run on the first player to hit 15 points before moving on.
And fitness instructor Lewis Harper pipped his boss Chris by the narrowest of margins - just one game - over the marathon contest.
Top contribute to the fundraising cause visit the Just Giving page here: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/atf-telford-crisis-1911
