Ziipline team prepare for 24-hour food bank trek

A team of employees from Ziipline were so moved by their volunteering experience at Hackney Foodbank that they’re preparing to walk 100km from London to Brighton.

Armed with cereal bars and sweets, the team of eight are joining the Ultra March – a 66-mile walk - on May 24th.  The route will take them from Richmond-Upon Thames, over the North Downs and through Surrey and Sussex until they reach the Brighton coastline.  It’ll take an estimated 24-hours.

Ziipline staff prepare to walk 100km for Hackney Foodbank

 Ali Rabey is among those taking part. She’ll be joined by Owen McGowan, Regan Smith, Sarah Smith, Stephen Izod, Will Prentice, Will Tyrrell and William Tsoi.

She said: “We’re so excited about the walk – we’re a pretty active team and we love a challenge. The idea came about over lunch one day when a colleague was wondering how long it would take to walk to Brighton – when we realised there was an organised event, we talked it over for three-months and decided to go for it.

“It’s a really good group – super motivating and we’ll push each other through. We all work for different parts of the business, which makes it even nicer as we won’t be talking about work all the time.

“We’ve a few ideas for things to do along the way – we talked about downloading an audio book and having a mini book club and we’ll come up with some games to play too. We’ll all take headphones and, when we’ve had enough of chatting can just listen to music. I imagine three in the morning is going to feel pretty tough!”

The team will stop for breaks every 12.5km – stopping for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks.  They’ve been spending weekends in the lead-up to the event on training hikes and hope to complete the event together.

They’ll be welcomed at the finish with fizz and a barbecue and will spend the rest of the bank holiday weekend recovering.

Asked what motivated them to fundraise for Hackney Foodbank, Ali replied: “We did a volunteering day with the food bank last year and were so moved and impressed by their work – we knew we wanted to do more to support. When we thought about which charity to support with this walk, we knew the money would make a big difference for a small charity like this rather than a bigger charity.”

To sponsor the team, visit: https://www.justgiving.com/team/ziipline