Hike for Help raises £6,862 and finishes at Arsenal's ground

Adam Boardman, Kristian Coulter and Reece Connell took on the challenge following Adam and his dad’s experience with someone preparing to jump from the Cantilever Bridge who was stopped by a woman, hence their starting position at Cantilever Park.

The-16-year-olds took on the challenge for mental health charity Mind – for which they have raised £6,862 so far. At the end of the 10 days, they were met by friends and family at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, as well as being provided with a signed ball by the Gunners team.

What a feat that is. The last time we caught up with the three boys, who have just finished year 11 at Lymm High School, they had raised more than £5,000 on day five and after finishing five days later, it was one of the most challenging things they had ever done.

“10 of the toughest days of my life, each step got harder as we went along, there was points where I was sat there in the heat ringing family with tears in my eyes,” said Adam.

“I’m not full of emotions usually but knowing what we have achieved more than 10 days does make me emotional with pride.

“There are people smiling down at us right now who we’ve lost that sadly didn’t win their battles. We had them in our minds for the whole 300 miles, we’ve made them proud."

Hike for Help took to all different walking terrains across the country

Adam continued: “But, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, we didn’t do this for ourselves, we did this for those who weren’t able to win their battle with mental health and those who are trying to win those battles as we speak, our aim was to help people to feel comfortable to speak out about their own mental health issues and we’ve certainly done that.

“I’d describe the journey like a battle with mental health, some days you can easily walk a marathon, despite all the pain you are able to get so much done, other days you get upset, finding it hard to even get up but we didn’t ever give up. Keep fighting please.”

One of the group, Reece, unfortunately, fell in a pothole on day nine and that put him out of action for that walk and most of the final day.

“It’s really hurting. Everyone keeps telling me I’m still a part of it but I really feel I’m not, it’s really hard. The pain is really bad itself but mentally looking at it and thinking that I didn’t complete the goal that I set out to do, is even harder,” he said.

However, Reece did join them for the last two miles to the Emirates and is on crutches now after finishing.

The soon-to-be Lymm High Sixth Form students walked to football grounds around the country

“The last two miles were hard and they’d already done 15 miles before that on the last day, because we tried to do it as short as possible.

“When we got to Arsenal there was a signed football and we got a stadium tour that was amazing!

“I think we’re going to auction it off for Mind and put the money into the JustGiving page.

“The experience was so memorable, I’ve learned so many lessons from it. Most importantly, there’s always going to be amazing people. We had people asking us what we were doing, trying to support us, give us money, even a couple of times people bought us food and snacks, that was probably the most memorable part about it. It was really good,” Reece added.

They finished up at Arsenal FC's Emirates Stadium to complete the 300-miles

“It was also a very serious event as well because we were raising money for a very serious campaign and hopefully the money that we have raised really can do something good.”

The JustGiving page can be found here.