Commit your commute

2020 has been a tough year for everyone, and the Saracens Sport Foundation have suffered like many other charities as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. As a small community charity, they rely on face to face fundraising events and challenges, which have been postponed or cancelled. They have lost in excess of £180,000 in fundraising as a result.

Covid-19 has posed challenges for the Saracens Sport Foundation specifically as they are a charity who work to re-engage the most socially isolated in the community, an aim made more difficult by the measures that are currently enforced. However, they believe that social distancing should not mean complete isolation! The Foundation have adapted the way they engage with the community - producing online content; using the good old fashioned postal service to stay in touch with their participants in prison; and using technology to check on their most vulnerable beneficiaries.

Covid-19 has been difficult for everyone, almost without exception. However, we must look for the silver linings, and as most of us get used to this new ‘Work From Home’ lifestyle, it does come with some perks! Gone are the rush hour crushes, the bus stop queues and monster traffic jams of the past!

The Commit your Commute campaign is an idea of the Saracens Sport Foundation to use these silver linings as a way of raising some much-needed funds for the charity. You could give anything from the cost of one bus journey to a month of petrol - it would all make a difference to the Foundation. All the work they do has a cost attached, and even preparing to get back to their normal delivery when the Covid-19 pandemic has passed provides its own challenges in terms of funding. So, when they say that the donation of a one-way bus ticket will have an impact, they really mean it!

Their projects – especially the ones without funding – are the projects that your donations will make a real difference to. See some of the things your commute could provide for the Foundation:

• £1.50 = 1 x Bus Journey = Parent Respite for 1 of their disABILITY participant parents for 1 week
• £4.80 = Return Tube Journey = The cost of a rugby ball for one of their rugby development programmes
• £25 = A week’s worth of petrol = One session of Sarrie’s RFC for one participant
• £50 = Fortnight of Tube Travel = One week of Sarrie’s Skills Club for one young person with severe autism

Anything you are able to donate, whether it’s your commute to work or your commute to Allianz Park for a big game, it will have a huge impact on the charity.

Donate below to help the Saracens Sport Foundation stay transforming lives in our local community.