Charity Online Cycle Ride Supporting the Homeless
St. Anne’s Community Services (St Anne’s), one of the North’s leading person-centred charities is celebrating its 50th Anniversary with a fund-raising, online cycle ride in support of homeless people.
Set up in 1971 to support homeless people in Leeds, St Anne’s has grown to provide multiple services supporting over 1600 people with learning disabilities, mental health needs, substance abuse support and homelessness.
The online cycle ride, which will involve interactive meetings with St Anne’s specialist services, is being undertaken by St Anne’s Service Manager Nicky Lyall. Nicky will be covering an amazing 50 services and over 500 miles on her exercise bike at home, which will be virtually tracked on a map covering geographically the services she visits.
A dedicated cyclist, Nicky has suffered from recent health issues, including most recently arthritis in her knees. Despite this she remains keen and dedicated to completing her ride and helping raise funds for and spread awareness of homelessness in Leeds.
Nicky said:
“I feel passion toward towards supporting the homeless and ensuring they have opportunities to have great life opportunities. I am doing this fund raising as a way of joining this passion with my other passion of cycling.
“Although my arthritis stops me from doing things like running, cycling is non weight bearing, so it is great for fitness and I hope will inspire the people we support in our services to take part too.”
As part of the ride, Nicky will undertake blogs, videos and have online calls to some of the people St Anne’s supports, encouraging them to undertake activities to promote health, fitness, and wellbeing
Nicky continued:
“Sometimes it doesn’t matter what fitness you do as long as you do something”.
Azra Kirkby, Chief Executive of St Anne’s said:
“We are so proud of Nicky, to undertake this with her arthritis really shows her amazing commitment to the people we support and to St Anne’s.
“We would love to encourage people to see our social media over the coming months, message Nicky and of course donate to supporting the homeless in Leeds.
“The pandemic has made celebrating our 50th year in a more distanced way, but we are still determined to make a difference to the lives of the people we support to ensure they have a life without limits. Nicky is a credit to us”.
To donate to support the homeless in Leeds and Nicky, please visit:
