Stephen’s fundraising goes swimmingly well

Stephen is a gentleman we support who has autism, a visual impairment and cerebral palsy.

Stephen is always keen to fundraise and do nice things for the benefit of others

His cerebral palsy means that he suffers from stiff and weak muscles and tremors, but he has never let this hold him back – quite the opposite.

Well-known as an avid fundraiser, he is described by his support staff Tiffany Manton as “A real team player who always tries to good things for other people” and this year was no exception.

After swimming 30 lengths and raising £1600 for Sports Relief last year, Stephen decided that this year he’d like to do something similar, but this time raising money for Dimensions.

Our team in Kent are currently fundraising for fund a new sensory garden, something that will benefit Stephen and other people we support in the area. He also decided to double his swimming goal from 30 lengths to 60!

Stephen set about training twice a week with incredible enthusiasm. He was determined to achieve his goal, despite the challenges it brought.

Though Stephen is a regular swimmer, 60 lengths is almost a mile, and his cerebral palsy means he has a unique style of swimming on his back as he can’t use one of his arms to assist him.

On the day, his staff team and him were excited yet nervous. Would he manage it? Had all the hard work and training paid off?

It was an incredible challenge, and Stephen was in the pool in total for over four hours.

But not only did he manage it, he surprised all his spectators by swimming not just 60 lengths, but 64 in total – the equivalent of a mile!

Stephen was thrilled to have achieved his goal

He had supporters cheering him on including all his support staff, members of his family and other local swimmers who gave donations and congratulated him on swimming so well.

After being in the pool for nearly 4 hours Stephen had the shivers, the life guards really looked after him and wrapped him up in a foil blanket, he really did look like a champion! – Tiffany Manton, Support Worker

Afterwards, everyone celebrated with a well-deserved meal in the café.