On the 14^th May, I will be walking 30miles from my home in Oxfordshire, across Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire, and ending in Warwickshire. The aim is to raise funds for the national charity Plunkett Foundation, and raise awareness of their work supporting rural community businesses. Along my journey, I will be visiting and filming community businesses to showcase the amazing impact they have in their local communities, and especially so throughout the pandemic.

The Plunkett Foundation has over 100 years’ experience supporting communities to set up and run businesses in community ownership. In the last 25 years alone, Plunkett has supported over 700 community businesses to open throughout the UK, from village
shops and post offices, through to local pubs, woodlands, farms and fisheries.

With a long term survival rate of over 96%, community businesses safeguard valuable services on which rural communities depend; they stimulate the local economy through promoting local supply chains; they create opportunities for local people such as employment, training, and volunteering; and they overcome issues relating to loneliness, mental health and wellbeing.

I’m lucky enough to be the CEO of Plunkett Foundation, and have been nothing short of impressed by the response of community businesses to the pandemic and how they have stepped up to support local people. During this time, Plunkett’s service has been
inundated with requests for help from new and existing community businesses and we now need your help. All funds raised from this ‘Walk for Plunkett’ will go directly towards meeting this surging demand for community business support.

Thank you for your support in helping us reach our fundraising target.