Everest Base Camp Trek (our 2012 charity project)
In late October 2012, our youngest "employee" Cameron (16) and our eldest "employee", his Grandad Willie (age unknown) and around a dozen other people will fly off to Nepal to spend 17 days climbing through the foothills of the Himalaya with the aim of reaching Mount Everest Base Camp. The trek is physically demanding and the extreme altitude makes this a pretty formidable challenge. By the time they reach Base Camp at 17,500 feet above sea level, oxygen levels are so low that their bodies will effectively be operating on one lung.
Raising the £7,000 in sponsorship is also a huge challenge so we're supporting them and are also asking customers to consider making a small donation in, what nowadays, must be the simplest way possible . . . by text! More about that below.
The sponsorship money goes to Who Cares? Scotland, a charity offering advice, support, advocacy and a crucial voice to children and young people in care. For full details of their excellent work please visit www.whocaresscotland.org.
The expedition is run by Community Action Treks, a not-for-profit travel company with many years' experience in Nepal and winners of several awards, including the prestigious Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Award. Once all the flights and expenses are paid for, profits are donated to Community Action Nepal, a charity now running over 50 projects to help and support the proud mountain people and their communities.
For more details of their work please visit www.canepal.org.uk.
Doug Scott, the first British person to summit Everest, is one of the directors and we feel their work is well worth supporting.
Cameron is our son and is still at school, so works with us whenever he's not studying (which isn't too often at the moment to be honest, with big exams this year). Willie is Cameron's Grandad - a retired music teacher - and helps with packing larger orders most days . . . we can't seem to get rid of him! Cameron and Willie give us a lot of extra help which supports our full-time pickers and packers so we feel this exedition is also a good way for us to say thank-you to them. We're now sponsoring them for the hours they help out and we've got a series of fundraising events planned.
Cake-stuff.com covenants a percentage of our profits to charity, so this year we will continue to support Loaves & Fishes and the Salvation Army (City Centre Street Project), who work with homeless people in Glasgow. In addition, we will support Cameron and Willie's efforts as they raise sponsorship. Just as we did with the Bridge Built With Cakes project last year, a donation is made for every order we receive.
One other way we can help is to make our customers aware of the project and hope that some of you may want to lend a little extra support.
Please excuse us if this sounds in any way cheeky . . . asking for money is never easy . . . so this is only for people interested in helping further . . .
For more information on the whole fundraising project please visit www.justgiving.com/cameronyoungeveresttrip.
You can donate safely on-line and can even use PayPal. If you do donate and you're a UK taxpayer, please remember to tick to reclaim Gift Aid as the charities get an extra 25% in tax relief without it costing you any more.
You can also donate by text (how cool is this?!?!?!?!) . . .
simply text EGGY99 £1 to 70070
(EGGY99 £2, EGGY99 £5, EGGY99 £10 and so on). It's simple, it's fast, it's safe and it really helps.
To follow fundraising progress and find out about events you can also follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/cameronyoungeveresttrip
