Care of Police Survivors
Light the Lakes 2021
The Light The Lakes event sees teams of police officers, staff, retired officers and police friends light up the famous Wainwright fells of Cumbria in memory of colleagues killed.
Story
Since 2012, Light the Lakes has now become an established event in the climbers diary where Police Officers, colleagues and friends climb Wainwright peaks in the Lake District to raise money to support COPS (Care of Police Survivors) who relentlessly work to provide peer support and access to counselling services to help surviving family members rebuild their shattered lives. They have helped hundreds of police families devastated by the loss of a loved one who died on duty.
The Vision has always been to cover all 214 Wainwright fells to light a flare in honour of our fallen colleagues. The 2012 event was the foundation Ian Davis laid for Light the Lakes with the ambition of completing all 214 Wainwright Peaks. In May 2015, Ian announced he was stepping down from organising the main event and Vinny Wagjiani continued organising the event with a strong team, keeping the legacy going with his sight on getting all 214 Peaks covered.
Our partnership with Wainwrights Beer has strengthened and they continue to be our main sponsor for the event and help drive it to be the best it can be. Our support extends beyond Wainwrights and we are pleased to have a number of supporters that go the extra mile to make this event happen and we are seeing year-on-year growth in attendance. The 2019 event was exceptionally successful in that we covered 208 peaks with over 1500 participants and with it being the clearest night climbers were able to see many peaks around them being lit. Light the Lakes has fostered a hunger in people to find an inspirational peak for their next challenge.
Whilst the team may have changed over the years, the passion and determination to remember those we have lost in the Police service has not.
Lighting those peaks is a time of reflection for our Police family. Many of us have lost friends and colleagues and Light the Lakes gives us a chance to continue to remember them by lighting that blue flare.
The Police family are of course also part of their local communities and Light the Lakes is therefore an event for everyone. In 2019 we saw parents and children camping up on the fells, whilst friends and family members climbed alongside their police colleagues.
