Over £1,000 raised for Manchester charity by a group of University of Manchester students
Featured image: UoM Hitchhiking Society
Manchester’s first student-led hitchhiking society has raised more than £1,000 for Mancunian charities on an adventurous trip to Newcastle.
A total of 26 University of Manchester students took part in the ‘Little Hitch’ relying on the kindness of others to get them to their destination while raising funds for homelessness charity Lifeshare.
Participants followed a strict safety-guide and the trip was carefully organised with preparation including making signs, designing t-shirts and staying overnight in a hostel.
Lifeshare is Manchester’s oldest homelessness charity founded in 1984 and offering support to vulnerable people on the streets of Manchester and Salford, helping them rebuild their lives.
Adventure
George Laws, whose group came third overall, told NQ: “Most of our success came down to luck and good people.”
When asked why he chose to join the Hitchhiking society, he said: “It seemed like something that would make a good story, and I needed to go an adventure.”
The inspiration to start hitchhiking for charity came from Bummit in Sheffield, an organisation that has been addressing charitable causes by raising over £1m since 2003.
A priority for organisers was health and safety and making sure everyone understood the rules that had to be followed.
Tracking system
The guide included only travelling between dusk and dawn, sticking in groups of three, always including one male and signing up to a tracking system using the app Life 360.
Details of each vehicle they were travelling in were also required to be passed onto the health and safety officer, Kath.
George and his team, who came third place, managed to hitchhike all the way to Newcastle with no hiccups.
They planned to get to service station nearby with good connections to the M1 and “just hope we got as north as possible”, he said. “Most of our success came down to luck and good people”, he added.
Amelia Cook, the founder of UoM’s hitchhiking society, had a different experience to share.
Her group faced a struggle to get picked up from a high street in Rochdale, only to find themselves stranded in Middlesbrough.
With the sun setting and darkness closing in, they had no choice but to catch a train into Newcastle.
Amelia described her experience as “great” and expressed optimism over “the extent to which you can rely on the kindness of strangers”.
“It really restores your faith in humanity”, she added.
Achievement
After seeing the “little dots move up the country” on Life 360, all the groups met at a pub where they celebrated their achievement over some pizza and pints, George told NQ.
A GoFundMe page was created to collect donations for Lifeshare and ensure everyone involved in the fundraising effort had a secure space to reach their target.
Young Manchester and 42nd Street are some of the other charities the society hope to donate towards.
Both charities focus on youth support by providing a community network to strengthen opportunities or improving mental health and well-being.
Organisers wanted those fundraising to affiliate with the charities, which is why they are Manchester based and mostly involved offering support to young people.
Lexie Baynes, UoM’s Student Union affairs officer, told NQ she feels fundraisers have done an “amazing job” at tackling the prominence of homeless, “especially at this time of year”.
The future for UoM’s hitchhiking society is bright. Plans are already in place to organise the ‘Big Hitch’ in April next year, which will involve seven days of travel to a city in Europe.
“We hope that it becomes more popular each year”, Amelia said.