We are bringing together the whole FBB Family to travel 20,000 kilometres and raise £20,000 from now until Sunday 12th July 2020, the day that would have marked the now postponed Euro2020 final. Let's Go Beyond together.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, it is estimated that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are much more at risk of falling behind at school than their peers. Help us raise the funds we need to reach even more young people with our FBB Virtual School over the summer months and beyond.

We've timed it to fill the gap left by the postponed Euro 2020 tournament. It would have been a brilliant tournament, but together we can harness the unique power of sport and pride to bring people together for a very important cause.

How to get involved

>> Between now and the 12th July, challenge yourself to walk, run or cycle and give to support the #FBB2020 Challenge

>> Get active and donate to our JustGiving page to support the FBB Virtual school so we can support even more young people. When making your donation tell us how many kilometres you've covered!

>> Create some friendly competition and join the campaign with your colleagues, friends, family, or football club! Set up your own fundraising page and use the following URL to connect it to ours: www.justgiving.com/campaign/FBB2020

>> Join the 'Football Beyond Borders' club on Strava, so you can track your distances and see how others are doing.

>> Tell us how many kilometres you have completed on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook using the hashtag #FBB2020. Tell us how you are feeling with an emoji, and if you want to, nominate two friends to get involved as well.

Other ways to support

>> If you are unable to get active but still want to support the campaign, donate to one of the fundraising pages or get in touch with us to find out what else can be done to support FBB.

>> Visit our website and sign up to become a monthly supporter.

Why should I get involved?

During the Covid-19 pandemic, it is estimated that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are much more at risk of falling behind at school than their peers, with the Guardian recently reporting that a decade of progress to narrow the attainment gap between them and their classmates is now at risk.

This issue is compounded by the reality that many disadvantaged young people do not have access to outdoor spaces at home to play and exercise for the recommended 60 minutes per day. Together, these challenges threaten adolescent physical and mental health.

Through the FBB Virtual School Day, we have delivered classroom sessions and 1:1 therapeutic interventions. We have kept our participants active with wellbeing activities and daily workout challenges. We have set up creative projects with professionals from creative industries and England Footballer Chris Smalling (pictured below) has jumped into FBB sessions on Google Hangouts! Thanks to our incredible team, we've ensured that nearly 80% of the participants we work with across London, Kent, Essex and Manchester have had support from FBB during the lockdown period.

Your support could help us improve our Virtual School and reach even more young people.

£10 - Could help us provide equipment such as pens, pencils and paintbrushes to participants so they can engage with their creative passions

£100 - Could help us work with a graphic designer to create high-quality digital resources which drive engagement with our participants

£250 - Could help us purchase a laptop so that we can support young people who cannot access the internet at home

£1,000 - Could help us to design a new digital project, based around young peoples passions

£20,000 - Could help us add additional digital delivery expertise to our team of practitioners

Our Virtual School Day has now been running successfully for almost two months. We continue to test what we have learned about delivering virtually and improve our model. It is unlikely that schools will return to the old world we used to know for some time, and we want to make sure we are best placed to support our participants no matter what this pandemic throws at them. We have delivered some outstanding projects, such as Football Beyond Walls with Fulham footballer Cyrus Christie, encouraging participants to engage in healthy conversations about their emotional wellbeing with their peers.

Over the Bank Holiday Weekend in May, Miranda Porritt, her friends and family walked, cycled or hiked across the country for Freddie Mclennan. Freddie was just 19 when he was killed in a car accident in Bolivia on his gap year last year, and since then his loved ones have been raising money in his memory for FBB. We never got to meet him, but he shared with us a passionate love for football and the good that it can do. Over the course of the long weekend, they have managed to travel 4000 miles and raise more than £7000 to support our programmes whilst doing it!

We were so inspired by their efforts that we now want to challenge everyone in the FBB FAM to join in! We are aiming to run, cycle, walk or swim more than 20,000km between us all, and in doing so raise £20,000 to support our work with vulnerable young people.

If you are a participant, practitioner, sponsor, quizzer, donor, follower, volunteer, trustee, football fan or or anything in between, we want to bring you all together to join in and be a part of this special campaign.