With The Big Sleep drawing ever closer, we are given the opportunity to meet some amazing people who believe in the work we do and have signed up to raise money for The Bridge.
This past month we worked a stall at The University of Leicester during their opportunities fair to talk to students about homelessness in Leicester, the work that we do, and how students can get involved, either at The Big Sleep, or by volunteering at The Bridge. We had a great time speaking to students and other organisations with stalls at the fair, but it wasn’t until the end of the fair we got to meet the person who organised the event.
Lucy Sturgess is the Business Development Manager at the Student Union at UoL, meaning she organises the commercial aspects of the Students Union, events and fairs throughout the year, and looks after commercial marketing for the SU. She’s worked at the university for over a year now, and has seen the build up to The Big Sleep on campus last year, but didn’t get a chance to join due to being away. Now The Big Sleep is back and Lucy is ready to get stuck in this year!
“I think we’ve got a few people recruited, I’m hoping to get more staff to join, and if they don’t join they need to donate!”
Lucy told us of a time when she felt a bit stuck, she’d come across someone rough sleeping while at a retail park and didn’t know what to do. If she told someone who worked there, she was sure they’d make them leave, but she still wanted to help the person rough sleeping. In the end she bought them a cup of tea. This situation shouldn’t even be happening, and we’re grateful to Lucy for doing what she could to help. But that wasn’t enough for Lucy, and so she is now campaigning for The Big Sleep.
As well as working at the university, Lucy uses her free time to be a content creator, focusing on her adventures as an avid cyclist, and uses her platform to be open about mental health. We spoke about how 95% of those experiencing homelessness suffer from poor mental health in some capacity, and how the work she does by speaking openly about her own mental health and experiences helps to remove the stigma from it.
“I started cycling about 11 years ago, it really helped with my mental health, so I started a charity challenge and found lots of benefits. I set up instagram, that grew, so I set up youtube, and I vlog about cycling and backpacking, but also speak about mental health.”
Lucy has already done an incredible amount of fundraising for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, a cause that is extremely important to her, which has come about in a variety of different ways, from skydiving, to running a pop up cafe, and even completing a challenge of 30km cycling, climbing Snowden, then doing a 3km kayak. Compared to that, we think for Lucy The Big Sleep will be a snooze!
“As a keen cyclist, I do a lot of bike packing trips. I've done a tour of 6 weeks in Europe across 10 countries. It was really cool, I’d love to do that again. Obviously sleeping outside for that was by choice, but for people who don’t have that luxury it’s a very different reality. I know we can’t replicate the experience someone has, but I’m looking forward to raising money and raising awareness.
I’ll start a bit of a campaign by sharing what I’m doing, sharing my fundraiser page, and talking about the good work that The Bridge does. It's a really worthwhile cause.”
We are so grateful for the amazing, kind, and generous people like Lucy who have signed up to The Big Sleep and are helping The Bridge continue our work to support those experiencing homelessness. At the time of writing this Lucy is already nearly halfway to her target, with just under a month to go!
If you would like to sign up to The Big Sleep, you can do so here, and help make a difference to someone’s life.
Or if you would like to donate to Lucy, you can find her fundraising page here.
And finally, to keep up with The Bridge and The Big Sleep, click here to find all our social channels.
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