A NEWLY-ARRIVED resident to Tunbridge Wells who decided to raise money for the foodbank in his new town by climbing the highest mountain in Africa, has also broken the altimeter on his fundraising target.
Jim Hawker moved to the town earlier this year when he and his wife Daisy inadvertently bought a home belonging to Edgar Wallace – the Edwardian author who wrote ‘King Kong’ and who was Daisy’s great-grandfather.
When Mr Hawker spoke to the Times in July, after discovering he had bought the author’s former home in Little Mount Sion, he said he was taking part in a sponsored climb of Mount Kilimanjaro for Nourish Community Foodbank, but he only had a couple of hundred pounds’ worth of sponsorship.
“The whole group raised about £20,000,” he said.
However, his JustGiving page collected £1,265, giving him a total of £1,500 and a lot of unexpected support from his adopted town.
Speaking about the funding, Jim said: “I got a real mixture of donations from the local community, new friends, school friends, connections from my children’s school, too, the tennis club and so on.”
He funded the journey himself, travelling with a group of friends, all raising money for different charities.
“It took about eight or nine days. We did lots of walking – you get used to an altitude then go up a level, then go down again,” he explained.
“You don’t need a mask but it was minus 15.”
Since coming back from Tanzania in mid-September, he has handed the donations over to Nourish, and has received an invitation to visit to see the work the charity does.
He added: “It’s going to be a big winter for them.”
