20-year-old Kai Fletcher is taking on an epic fundraising challenge, backed by Heart Breakfast hosts Jamie Theakston and Amanda Holden, to raise money for those hit hardest by coronavirus.
Kai, who grew up in a household troubled by alcohol and domestic violence, became involved with Bath-based charity Southside Family Project as a teenager when he found himself homeless and needed to access their support.
Kai will be retracing and re-enacting a moment that changed his life for the better when he walked 4 miles in the pouring rain to the charity’s office in Twerton to ask for help.
Kai will be walking the 8-mile round trip route every day for a week, having started yesterday, Monday 15th June.
Kai is one of Jamie and Amanda’s Charity Challengers, a group of inspiring people raising money for an Emergency Appeal from Heart’s charity Global’s Make Some Noise.
The appeal is supporting small charities that are helping those experiencing grief, poverty, domestic abuse, loneliness, illness and mental health problems, as well as carers and care workers.
Between 12th – 19th June, Jamie and Amanda’s Charity Challengers will be walking, running, dancing, cycling, climbing, and canoeing as hard as they can live on Heart Breakfast.
Each Charity Challenger has a special connection to one of the small charities that Global’s Make Some Noise supports and each of them has a very important reason why they want to take their challenge on.
Kai is supported by Southside Family Project, a small charity based in Twerton that exists to support families in Bath and North East Somerset dealing with issues like physical disability, domestic abuse, sexual violence, substance abuse or long-term mental health problems.
Speaking to Heart Breakfast, Kai explained how Southside Family Project supported him; “They were very encouraging getting me back on my feet.
“At first it started with me finding a level playing field of being in school. So I would go there once a week just to sort of see everyone and help out and then I’d go to school for the rest of it.
“Then I started speaking to them about how I was dealing with my emotions and stuff and they just really wanted to help and gave me guidance on what I needed to do and how I needed to do it.
“As I left school they supported me more because I faced a few issues, just as I left school being homeless, so they guided me on what I needed to do and they helped me get into life now really.
“As I am now is because Southside guided me into the path I needed to find.”
Time to set off Kai one of our #CharityChallengers!
He’s walking the route he took to @southsidebanes to ask for help which changed his life forever. He’ll walk this 8-mile route every day this week hoping to inspire others to ask for help toohttps://t.co/P8J8xl5Ut0 @makenoise pic.twitter.com/MjDrEf4j3I
— Heart (@thisisheart) June 15, 2020
Amanda Holden told Kai: “As an emotional journey, that is a tough journey to make. What an amazing idea, it’s a great idea” with Jamie Theakston adding: “It’s a wonderful challenge, it’s a very poignant challenge that you’re going to be taking on because that walk was a walk that changed your life and you’re going to be doing that every single day” before encouraging Heart listeners to get behind Kai and donate towards the cause.
You can show your support for Kai and Jamie and Amanda’s Charity Challengers by donating to Global’s Make Some Noise Emergency Appeal here.