Supporting the important work of the Blue Lamp Foundation

Last week I spoke about the next steps in policing. This week, we were proud to hand over a cheque for £3,091.23 to the Blue Lamp Foundation, representing the fruits of our fundraising efforts for the year.

Reliance High-Tech partnered with the Blue Lamp Foundation a few years back to help support its important work with injured emergency services heroes. Blue Lamp was created in 2010 by PC David Rathband after he was shot at close range. This left him completely blind in both eyes, and following a brave battle to overcome his injuries and adapt to his new life, David sadly passed away at the age of 44. The Blue Lamp Foundation helps those from the emergency services who have been injured, physically and/or emotionally, in the line of duty. It provides funding and support towards treatment, rehabilitation and out-of-pocket expenses.

To raise money for the foundation, over the course of the year, staff at Reliance High-Tech have undertaken a range of activities, including participating in Golf events, auctions for theatre tickets, a Guess the World Cup Score game and, most successfully, a virtual walk around Britain.

This involved a challenge to ‘virtually’ circumnavigate the UK mainland in 30 days using only human-powered transportation. The Reliance High-Tech Human Powered Travel Challenge ‘started’ from the London Gateway and saw colleagues join forces to run, walk, cycle, skip, row and even hop the 7,720 miles around the UK, as their progress was recorded on a corporate fitness app and social media. Some 60 Reliance colleagues registered for this challenge, and engineer Franky Wooders clocked up the most miles!

The Reliance High-Tech Human Powered Travel Challenge was the first fundraiser the team was able to undertake since 2019, when employees scaled the equivalent height of Mount Everest using the stairs at its headquarters. They climbed 29,035ft after completing 605 ascents of the stairs and 45,980 steps within a month, raising funds for the SSAFA.

Lead organiser of the Reliance High-Tech Human Powered Travel Challenge and the company’s Chief Financial Officer, David Walton, is shown above handing over the cheque to the Blue Lamp Foundation.

As David says: “‘We take the selection of our corporate charity very seriously. The incredible work that the Blue Lamp Foundation does to support emergency operational personnel from the UK’s police, fire and ambulance services who become injured whilst carrying out their duties was a perfect fit with our corporate social responsibility (CSR) ethos.”

For more details on the work of the foundation, visit http://www.bluelampfoundation.org/ You can also get involved in its sterling work here.