Hundreds tackle forest walk for charity.

Over 600 walkers took on the Forest of Dean Walk challenge to help prevent youth homelessness on Saturday 14th June. St Basils Walk, which is sponsored by Bournville-based Mondelēz International, takes place in a different part of the country each year. This was the 16th year of the event, but the first in the Forest of Dean.

Every annual walk is carefully designed to offer a varied course with beautiful scenery and we were lucky to have such a glorious day with wall to wall sunshine which really set off the stunning views from Symonds Yat Rock, the highest point of this years’ Walk. Then by contrast, walkers enjoyed the slight breeze afforded from walking close to the river Wye and then the relative shelter of the trees close to the Cycle Centre. More experienced walkers taking on the 26 mile challenge, got to explore much more of the ancient forest with its tightly packed 40 foot pine trees said to have inspired JRR Tolkien.

One of the teams taking part was from Waterloo Housing Group. First timer on the walk Mark Taylor from Waterloo said: “St Basils does great work with homeless young people and we wanted to support this event to help make a difference. We thought the walk was excellent – very well organised and a great experience.”

Lucy Hackett, Head of Fundraising at St Basils, said: “Both the excellent feedback and the smiles on people’s faces as they neared the finish line proved most teams relished this year’s challenge. We would like to thank all our walkers for the amazing effort they put in and we would also like to thank all their friends, families and colleagues for sponsoring them to do this event. Your efforts and support will help homeless young people access opportunities such as university, apprenticeships and jobs which will help secure their futures away from the ‘cycle’ of homelessness that exclusion from opportunities can cause. Thank you so much for all your support!”

For more information please visit www.stbasils.org.uk