Tarves Football Club's 90 minute challenge raises £2k for charity
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Tarves Football Club has raised just over £2000 for a charity that was set up in memory of the young son of a player.
The team, management and committee members took on the 90 minute challenge, which saw the participants either run, cycle or walk as far as they could in the time period.
The fundraising from the club will go to Hamish Dear's Warm Hugs, which supports young children who are being treated for cancer and their families.
The charity was founded by player Kris Dear and his wife Hollie in memory of their son Hamish, who was diagnosed with stage 4 Neuroblastoma in February 2015 and passed away nine months later at the age of three.
The couple created the charity to enable families to enjoy their time together and the good days when their children are going through treatment. This includes providing funding for day trips, gifts or short breaks.
Kris said: "We wanted to have some kind of football theme to the challenge.
"Everyone started at 2pm because that is what time we usually kick-off when playing our games, and each participant either ran, cycled or walked as far as they could in 90 minutes.
"When they completed their activity they posted how far they went and all the distances were added up into a total."
For a donation people were able to guess how many kilometres the team would collectively do in the 90 minutes, with the winner receiving a one-night stay in the Maryculter House Hotel.
They covered 585.37 kilometres and Rothie Rovers player Jake Stewart was closest with his guess of the total. The prize was donated by the club's manager Robbie Massie.
The challenge saw 24 runners, four cyclists and one walker take part and their efforts saw them raise £2085 for Hamish Dear's Warm Hugs.
Kris said: "The charity was set up five years ago in 2016 about six months after Hamish passed away.
"He was diagnosed in February 2015 and unfortunately he passed away in November of that year after nine months of treatment.
"The charity supports children who have been given a cancer diagnosis in either Aberdeen, Glasgow or Edinburgh hospitals.
"When Hamish was going through his treatment and was having a good day, we were allowed to take him out and we were in a financial position to do things.
"However, we became quite aware that other families didn't have the resources to do this.
"We set up the charity to help and enable them to make good memories."
After Hamish's diagnosis he went through chemotherapy treatment. The family was hopeful the cancer was gradually reducing, however complications arose from an undetected cancer on his brain and he succumbed to the disease.
In his memory Hamish Dear's Warm Hugs helps other families in three ways.
It provides them with vouchers for easy to access day-trip activities and then something to eat and drink at restaurants. This includes for Cineworld, Aberdeen Science Centre and Union Square.
The charity can also provide gifts for the children including new toys for special occasions.
Finally it can help fund short breaks away for the families to enjoy.
Kris added: "It was good to get the team back together in a different way during the challenge.
"It was great to see my teammates supporting our charity and helping to raise awareness of it."
For more information on the charity visit www.hamishdearswarmhugs.com or its Facebook page at www.facebook.com/hamishdearswarmhugs
