Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Let me introduce myself, my name is Cameron Foster and I would like to tell you about my story. Six years ago whilst on my first ever school trip I had a serious accident during a skiing holiday in Pila, Italy  when I fell 40 feet from a ski lift breaking both legs, dislocating both ankles, breaking my right arm and having a severe bump to my head. I was only 9 years old at the time in a strange country unable to speak the language and my parents were back at home in England, it was a very traumatic time.

Fortunately I made a full recovery from my accident, however during my rehabilitation I realised how difficult it was to participate in sport as I spent nearly 8 weeks in a wheelchair and as a result it was so difficult to join in with my friends in all the sports I was so used to playing like football, cricket and karate. With this in mind, once I had recovered I decided I wanted to help children who were less fortunate than me who were permanently disabled and it was this that made me want to make a difference. So I organised a sponsored walk to raise funds for the Wigan Disability Sports Forum. With the help of all my family and friends I managed to raise over £5600 some of which was specifically used to fund and organise Table Cricket and Boccia within the borough of Wigan.

This was only the start of my fundraising activities for a number of different charities including Cystic Fibrosis Trust, Sport Relief, Derian House, Manchester Children’s Hospital, AF Foundation and Cricket Without Boundaries raising more than £18,000 to date.

Perhaps just as importantly as my fundraising is the volunteering work that I have become involved with since my accident. I have been privileged to be involved with the Wigan Sports Development unit where I volunteered with a weekly session coaching young disabled children in multi sports; I also coach at summer camps for children during their summer holidays. This has now turned into paid work and I now undertake and lead 2 sessions a week for disabled kids. I also coach Karate, Cricket and Basketball at numerous sessions during the week. I really enjoy working with both children and adults and get tremendous satisfaction of being able to help people develop in their chosen sports. I have currently completed my FA Level 1 Coaching Badge and look to doing my Cricket Level 1 this summer.

I have recently arrived back in the UK after I spent 2 weeks volunteering in Kenya with a charity ‘Cricket without Boundaries’. In my 2 weeks there I was part of a team of 9 volunteers. We coached cricket in schools and learned the kids about HIV/Aids awareness messages by linking them into the cricket. We also educated teachers in Kenya to be able to coach cricket so the project was sustainable when we left. Overall we coached around 3000 kids and educated nearly 150 teachers.  I am the youngest volunteer the charity has ever sent out on a project and it was an amazing experience to go and combine my passions of coaching sport and supporting and helping communities. You can see what we got up to on our trip on the blog I wrote at www.cwbblogs.com/kenya11

I have been fortunate to be rewarded for my achievements to date although that isn’t the reason why I fundraise and volunteer. My awards include: British Red Cross Humanitarian Fundraiser of the year and the Overall Citizen award. A gold Blue Peter Badge, The Diana Award, Wish FM Child of Courage award, Wigan Borough Un-sung hero in sport award, Greater Manchester runner – up un-sung hero award, StreetGames Local Hero award and The Helen Sodhi Award. It is great to see these schemes set up as I am very passionate about recognising young people’s achievements and rewarding them to keep them motivated to keep up their good work and to help their personal development.

After being 1 of 10 National Coca Cola Future Flame Olympic Ambassadors, I have just been named as an Olympic Torchbearer for the London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay and was selected as 1 of 12 bearers to attend the national launch event in London to be the first torchbearers to be announced to the media. This was a truly inspiring day and I can’t wait for next year.

I have recently been selected as the first young ambassador for the Lancashire County Cricket Club Foundation. I will be working with the charity from the ground up as it is in its early stages. Other ambassadors are Jimmy Anderson, England Cricket fast bowler, and Kyle Hogg Lancashire Cricketer. A High profile premiership footballer is soon to be named the 4 ambassador. I look forward to working with these three in the future promoting and helping the charity.

Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research is the only UK charity solely dedicated to research into blood cancers, including leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma. Your contribution really will make a difference to the lives of the 28,500 people diagnosed every year with a blood cancer. beatingbloodcancers.org.uk

For more information on the challenge please visit: http://leukaemialymphomaresearch.org.uk/get-involved/beefys-great-british-walk-2012

It will be an absoloute pleasure for me to take part in the walk and to raise money for this extremely worthwhile cause. I ask you all to dig deep in your hearts and to give as little or as large to this amazing charity to help not just support me but to support the thousands of people who benefit from the charity. Thankyou in advance.

Cameron x

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So please dig deep and donate now.