Sibling hi-valry - Whitehaven brother and sister take the charity plunge

24 August 2010

A United Utilities engineer is taking his sister for a running jump, but it's all for a good cause.

Steve Mawson, from Whitehaven in Cumbria, and his sister Anna Mawson are planning a 160ft sponsored bungee jump off Middlesbrough's transporter bridge on August 29.
 
And if that wasn't enough, Steve will then go straight into training for a gruelling half marathon - the Great Cumbrian Run - on October 10.
 
Steve, 29, a wastewater maintenance engineer from Bigrigg, and Anna, 25, an electrician from Hensingham, want to raise cash to give disabled and disadvantaged children the holiday of a lifetime.
 
Said Steve: "It's a great cause but I think we must be mad. We are both doing the jump, but I think I might have to let Anna go first."
 
The idea for the plunge came from Steve's work mate Alan Raby - a fellow wastewater maintenance engineer at United Utilities' Cleator Wastewater Treatment Works.
 
Steve explained: "We're doing this for the Cumbrian branch of the Pilgrimage Trust or HCPT - it helps kids who have a wide range of physical and mental disabilities.

"Alan and his family are volunteers who take the children abroad and have to fund travel and accommodation for the trip. The group takes six children every year and it costs in excess of £6,000 to take them away for a week not including the volunteers' costs."

Steve and Alan have teamed up for fund-raising challenges before, but Anna, sensibly, doesn't take part in all of them. This New Years Eve the two men plunged into Whitehaven harbour, where five minutes in water eight degrees below freezing netted them a cool £300, which was doubled by their employer United Utilities.

For both men, the physical feats involved have seen them get really fit and lose a considerable amount of weight. Steve has shed an incredible ten stone, and Alan has lost four.
 
They do not intend on stopping there. Said Steve: "I lost a lot of weight through a lifestyle change. It means I can do things I was never able to do before. Maybe next year we will do something a bit different. I fancy the three peaks challenge or even the coast to coast cycle route."
 
If you'd like to find out more about the Pilgrimage Trust or sponsor any of their charity events please contact Alan at HCPT group 75 (the Cumbrian Heros) on 01946 692527 or 07565 807199.
 
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