With bells and whistles, banners and balloons our Carers Leeds young adult carers, our staff and families descended on Elland Road on Friday in rain and cold to welcome the fabulous Pete Allison from Capital Radio at the end of his mammoth Pitch to Pitch challenge!

5 half marathons in 5 days is NOT for the faint hearted but Pete battled through each day,  inspired but the Young Adult Carers he was raising money for as well as raising much needed awareness. He did both!

We are so thrilled to be one the charities supported by Capital Yorkshire and Global’s Make Some Noise.  Every day of that week we were sending out support by emails, texts and tweets and telling people how to donate to Pete’s Pitch to Pitch Challenge. We felt the positive vibes all round our office and we hoped Pete was feeling them too.

In the end 2 of our own staff, Dawn and Steve joined in the last 2 days to show Pete how much it meant to us.

Supporting young adult carers is a big part of life at Carers Leeds. These young people aren’t always at the top of peoples agendas and the more we can work together with supporters like Capital Radio we know that we are doing our best and will always do our best to get the message out!

What’s the message? That these extraordinary young people….many who would never see themselves as doing anything out of the ordinary…. who may have had caring responsibilities for so long ‘it’s just the way things are’, who probably will never identify themselves as carers anyway, who want a life just the same as their mates and who after my time spent with them as we cheered Pete Allison on made me laugh till  my sides ached and made me feel proud I knew them all.

Pete raised over £10.000 that week. Big money!  Big respect!  Probably respect as big as I have for the young adult carers I know.

Val Hewison
Chief Executive