Seven year old Barney is doing something amazing this Christmas – a Christmas-a-thon!
What’s a Christmas-a-thon you ask? During December, Barney will be completing 12 challenges in the 24 days before Christmas day. These challenges range from learning a song on his guitar to doing something helpful for a neighbour and even designing a menu to cook a meal for his family (with a bit of supervision from dad!).
Barney’s mum Joanne told us: “We usually have an advent calendar with a different activity, visit or charitable act on each day but due to the pandemic we felt limited about what we could include.
We knew we wanted to still do something for charity at this time of year and thought the best way to do it would be to see if we can get sponsorship for something.
We started talking about things that would be really challenging for Barney on the way home from school one day.”
Barney added: “I am doing 12 difficult challenges. I chose things that would inspire people to sponsor me instead of choosing things like drink 8 drinks a day which would be easy”.
Of course, Barney is looking forward to some of the challenges more than others! He is most looking forward to reading four books, having already started his first one – ‘Sherlock Holmes –the Reigate Squires’.
His most difficult challenge will be the weekend walks needed to reach his 50km walking goal as it means that they will have no pyjama days for the whole of advent!
Barney set his sights on helping Cerebra as he wanted to help children with brain conditions because in his own words “they’re more difficult to solve than sneezes”.
You can help Barney reach his fundraising target through his Just Giving page.
Here’s a full list of the challenges that Barney will be taking on:
- Watch 24 episodes of Peppa Pig in a row (he does not like Peppa Pig!)
- Ride 5 metres on a bike without support (he has never ridden unsupported)
- Learn a song on his guitar (he has never done this before)
- Read 4 chapter books
- Walk 50km
- Design a menu and cook a meal for his family
- Dance all the way to school one day
- Complete 24 puzzles
- Do something helpful for a neighbour
- No talking for 3 hours in a row
- Pancake toss (toss 10 pancakes into a pan and not onto the floor!)
- Win solitaire 10 times
We can’t wait to see how Barney gets on! You can follow Barney’s progress on his Facebook group.
Fab Barney so proud of you. We know you will do all those challenges. So proud of you. Love Auntie Carole and Uncle Brian ??