Sixty DCU students will race their way to Edinburgh next week, November 21st, for the Donal Walsh Live Life Foundation, the catch is they can’t use any of their own money.
The event is called Beg, Borrow and Steal and is run by the Enterprise Society. Chairperson Dylan Kehoe came up with the idea last year with great results. He said: “We’re giving people a platform to do something awesome, to accede their potential, something they’ll never have a chance to do. And it looks great on your CV.”
There are strict rules to avoid cheating, “there will be checkpoints, so pre-arranged travel is impossible, sure I don’t even know where they’ll be yet. We’ll be checking bank statements too, the only money they can bring is for emergencies.”
There’s 30 teams of two that begin raising money for the foundation before they race. Last year €3,500 was raised for the Irish Cancer Society. With an aim of €8000 this year Mr Kehoe says “we’re hoping to slash that figure out of the park.”
The team who raise the most are given a 15 minute head start and a €25 Uber Taxi voucher as an incentive. There’s also similar runner up prizes.
Shane O’ Mahony, a competitor this year as well as last said: “It was probably the highlight of first year for me. The people we met along the way and the stories of how cancer affected their lives was a great motivation to keep going. We found people to be very generous when it came to giving us money for transport.”
Mr O’ Mahoney’s team has raised over €100 so far and are “yet to get their fundraising into full swing”. The race is on as 20 more teams were added this year, “it’s going to be interesting to say the least”.
Mr Kehoe praised DCU for: “providing the resources for something students will remember for the rest of their lives.”
Chaitanya Brady
Leave a Reply