Rugby League have raised over £1,140.25 for charities Oddball and Mind, who tackle testicular cancer and mental health respectively.
16 members of Rugby League took part in Bangor’s annual Half-Marathon, held on October 6th 2018.
The club chose to raise money and awareness for a couple of charities they believe to be very important.
After fantastic promotional work undertaken by the lads on social media, Rugby League managed to exceed their target mark of £400 by more than double.
One of the charities that Rugby Union chose to support was the Oddballs Foundation – https://www.myoddballs.com/pages/charity
100% of money earned by the charity is spent on raising awareness about testicular cancer, which reportedly affected almost 700,000 males in 2016 alone.
For most men testicular cancer is curable even when it has widely metastasised, another reason why it is so crucial that charities like Oddballs Foundation continue to receive funding to spread the message.
Another reason for choosing Oddballs Foundation is because of their close association with the sport of Rugby League. Testicular cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in young men (ages 15-34) – coinciding with the ages that people generally play the sport.
The other charity of choice is Mind (https://www.mind.org.uk/about-us/). Mind are focused on supporting those who suffer from mental health issues by providing support and raising awareness about the importance of mental health.
Rugby League affirm that: “mental health needs to be discussed and understood better, especially for young males.”
Suicide is the leading cause of death among young people aged 20-34 years in the UK and it is considerably higher in men. In the UK, men are three times more likely to take their own life than women.
Mind undertake important work to fight this by putting in place the infrastructure to help people suffering with mental health issues.
Corie, from Rugby League, said: “Many of the team have had personal experience with people who struggle with mental health issues so we felt it was an important cause to support.”
In total, Rugby League managed to raise £1077.75, greatly exceeding our initial target mark of £400.
Rugby League, said: “On the race day itself we had a great result with one of our members being the fastest in his age category, and some huge efforts by forwards who don’t like running too much! The lads who took part all showed great team spirit and did the team proud. I hope in reading this that you’ve learned something about our chosen charities and if you would like to help support them further all the links are in the article above.”
If you would still like to donate the link is: https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-display/showROFundraiserPage?userUrl=DanielSmart3&pageUrl=1
All the money will be split between the two charities.
