Jeffrey shoots for the stars with his Ultimate Goal Scoring Challenge!
In April this year we came across a video of our youngest fundraiser…EVER!
Meet Jeffrey…
Jeffrey’s Mum, Grace, had shared a video of his ‘Ultimate Goal Scoring Challenge’, and our hearts were immediately stolen! Two year old Jeffrey demonstrates abundant cuteness and outstanding football skills in equal measure – what’s more, his mighty right foot was scoring goals to raise money for Rowans Hospice and the Samaritans.
We contacted Grace to find out more about Jeffrey’s challenge, how it all came about and whether we could share his video on our social media channels – she said it would be an honour and as predicted, the community love was instant.
It all started with Jeffrey’s Grandma Michelle…
It turns out Jeffrey’s Grandma (and Grace’s Mum), Michelle, is a Family Support Volunteer at Rowans Living Well Centre, supporting people struggling with grief in bereavement. Starting her running journey in May 2019 to raise money for both the Rowans Hospice Charity and Portsmouth Samaritans, all Michelle could manage was a hobble round the block.
Michelle had never attempted a 10K run and wasn’t even sure if she could complete such a distance, but despite her reservations, she bravely signed up to the Bristol 10K on 3 May 2020.
However, when UK lockdown hit on 23 March 2020 and mass gatherings were banned, the event could no longer go ahead. Undeterred, Michelle continued her training. Then, at the start of April, Michelle was desperately trying to reach her fundraising goal.
With the Hospice facing such huge financial losses due to all fundraising events being cancelled as a direct result of the COVID pandemic, Michelle remained focused. In a show of solidarity, her family rallied around to support her with their own fundraising initiatives. Each of Michelle’s adult children set themselves a £100 fundraising target. In addition, The West Group where Michelle works, also supported her by match-funding the total donated by their employees.
As her contribution to her Mum’s fundraising, Grace created ‘Jeffrey’s Ultimate Goal Scoring Challenge’. She thought that Jeffrey, at just 2 years old and a lot cuter than his Mummy and Daddy, would raise more money than they could!
Despite being just two years old, Jeffrey is a huge Portsmouth Football Club fan, attending his first Pompey game on his 1st birthday in December 2018. Jeffrey is now a season ticket holder, and is known and adored by the surrounding crowd in the Fratton End and we can definitely see why! Here, he will watch the whole game, clap and cheer when they score, and never gets bored. He can’t sing any nursery rhymes yet, but he knows the words to all the Pompey Songs (minus the ones with inappropriate language) as any dedicated Pompey fan would!
It took Jeffrey just two days to complete his goal-scoring challenge, allowing for plenty of breaks in between filming. In total it only took two hours to film, with the most difficult shots being the sink, freezer and window which took him about 10 attempts! The other shots were completed within 1-3 attempts. What a little superstar! Move over Pogba, our boy Jeffrey needs signing up today for a glittering footballing career tomorrow!
Friends were absolutely captivated, with donations pushing Jeffrey’s Challenge to over £600! This in turn spurred Michelle on to run her own 10K course on 3 May – a challenge she completed in just 1 hour 3 minutes.
We cannot thank Jeffrey and Michelle enough for their wonderful support. They are both Hospice Heroes and to date, their JustGiving page has raised over £2,800 which will be split equally between the Rowans Hospice Charity and the Samaritans.
If you have been inspired by Jeffrey’s Ultimate Goal Scoring Challenge and would like to donate, please visit his Grandma’s JustGiving Page and leave “for Jeffrey’s Goals” in the comment section.