Fundraise for A Rocha UK

Sunday 26 April was the day the Virgin Money London Marathon was supposed to take place, leaving many charities with a serious gap in their funding.

Sunday 26 April will now be the first day of the 2.6 Challenge, a simple, fun way for everyone to play their part in saving the UK’s charities and supporting their invaluable work – A Rocha UK included!

By fundraising for A Rocha UK, you will be helping us to continue connecting churches and families with nature and God. Here’s 26 challenge ideas to get you thinking how you can be a Home Hero for nature!

Ideas:

Be an animal. Spend 2 hours 6 minutes as your favourite or nominated animal. Dress up, eat and drink like said animal complete with the appropriate animal sounds and face paint.
Bake for nature. Make a cake in the shape of your favorite animal, use 26 ingredients, whip up 26 nature-themed cupcakes! Host your very own Great British Bake Off and challenge 26 wannabe bakers to create their own showstoppers (donating to A Rocha UK to enter) and then judge photographs of their entries.
Complete a sponsored Silence. Do a 26 hour marathon of silence… or perhaps 2 hours 6 minutes would be a challenge enough!
Knit for nature. Knit 26 squares (or animals) in a day.
Make some (animal) noise. Record yourself making 26 animal noises for 26 seconds each – get friends to donate and suggest the next animal.
Do as many keepie-uppies as you can in 26 minutes – choose your favourite sport.
Go the distance for nature. Run, walk or cycle for 2.6K in your local area or in your home or garden. Using an app that tracks your route, can you come up with a route that forms the shape of a spider, swan or other animal? Get friends to nominate an animal shape and try to achieve running, walking or cycling this animal shape in your local green space.
Hold a Pose. Hold a pose, like a plank for 26 seconds, or 26 minutes.
Get creative for nature. Write 26 poems with a nature theme or for the songwriters out there, write 26 songs that are 26 seconds long all about nature!
Do 26 garden laps. Complete 26 laps of the garden on foot, running, cycling, on your scooter or on roller skates!
Green your garden – How many things can you plant, water to tend to in 26 minutes? Go live online and share your gardening tips with your friends and family.
Complete a puzzlethon – Try 26 crosswords, sudokus, jigsaws, word searches in one day.
Increase your knowledge of nature. Find out about 26 endangered species and share your findings with your family, friends and us!
Show off your party trick. Hula-hoop, juggle, skip or play a musical instrument for 26 minutes .. or how about 2 hours 6 minutes?
Complete a challenging workout. Try 26 stair climbs (not as simple as it sounds!)
Brush up on your language skills. Impress your family or friends or give them a good giggle by testing your language skills and memory. Learn to say ‘nature’ in 26 languages.
Host an Indoor Olympics. Putting clothes-away relay or soft toy shot put – what indoor ‘sports’ games can you and your family come up with? Ask your family and friends to tune in at a certain time online and give them the Olympic show they’ll miss this summer!
Host a virtual quiz – Pick a time for your virtual quiz to start and ask friends and family to donate to take part. Ahaslides.com is a great website for creating easy, multiple choice quizzes that anyone in the world can play on their phone, tablet or computer. It’s free for up to seven players and the interface is easy enough for everyone to get to grips with. Within minutes you can have a 26-question quiz ready to go – why not try a nature themed quiz?
Throw a smartphone nature scavenger hunt – Create a list of 26 items contestants have to snap on their smartphones on 26 April, a mixture of easy (a tree, a bird) and tricky (a dog that looks like a celebrity, a lily pad on a pond). Get people to donate to enter and whoever gets the most snaps wins.
Host an Auction – Are there 26 items at home you’ve been meaning to part with? Host an online auction with your nearest and dearest and make pledges to pass these over when you are safely able to do so. Or perhaps it could be an auction of your time to pledge for the future, for example an offer to babysit, a photoshoot, or to give someone a 5* dining experience at home etc.
Get creative. Draw or paint 26 different things from nature. Ask people to donate to claim a painting for their own.
Shave your head Get 26 people to sponsor you and go for the chop!
Complete a Danceathon Take part with people at home or online and dance non-stop for 26 minutes .. or how about 2 hour 6 minutes (take breaks in your own time)
Sing for nature and sing about nature. Sing 26 songs in a day.. What about 26 songs mentioning nature! “I see trees of green, red roses too…” Grab those hairbrushes and hit the live button on your social channel.
Offer online tutorials. What’s your expertise? Offer a piano, language, pilates, baking, maths, gymnastics one-on-one tuition over a 26-minute video.
Nominate 26 friends to do the 2.6 challenge! Ask your friends on social media to donate £2.60 then pass it on to another. Let them choose an activity and get them involved!

Run, Walk or Cycle your own animal shapes in your local area! Here’s a Spider route on Strava.

What you need to do to start your challenge

Pick a challenge (make sure it’s something you can do safely, while observing social distancing)
Go to our 2.6 challenge Just Giving page and set up a fundraising page
Tell your friends and family about it, maybe challenge them to do their own
Post about it on social media to spread the word even further
Let us know what you’re up to too! Tag us on Twitter (@ARochaUK, on Instagram (@arocha_uk) and on Facebook (@A Rocha UK).
Then get ready to join thousands of others to do your challenge, starting Sunday, 26 April!