Run for Trees

Run for Trees – By Alex MacLeod. Alex looks after Trees for Life’s key corporate partnerships, helping businesses large and small to contribute to nature and support Scotland’s wild forest.

As February kicks into gear and January fades into the distance, it can sometimes be easy to forget those hopeful, earnest New Year resolutions. Perhaps your resolution was to eat well, or maybe take up a new hobby? Perhaps, as has been my ill-fated resolution for years now, you committed to get active and exercise more.

Whilst my resolutions to get fit often fall by the wayside, one corporate partner who has worked with Trees for Life over the course of 2018 has given me pause. Their inspiring tenacity has not only seen a team of IT whizz kids don their running shoes for a whole year – their fitness fervour has had a tremendous impact on wild nature in the Scottish Highlands.

As part of year long programme called ‘Run for Trees’, Barcelona-based developers Whitespectre set themselves an ambitious New Year resolution. They pledged that for every 10km their team ran each month in 2018, they would plant a new native tree in Scotland’s wild forest.

Perhaps easier said than done, you might think. Surely the fitness trend would wane as the year progressed and the pressures of work mounted.

Not so at Whitespectre. Thanks to the dedication of an incredibly motivated team, they have traversed well over 10,000km – a whopping total which has seen this company plant 1019 trees in the Scottish Highlands.

For a fair-weather runner like me, Whitespectre’s commitment to fundraising was not only an inspiring fitness story, but a prime example of fostering team-building through charitable fundraising.

Whitespectre’s example shows how a team can coalesce around a common charitable goal. Their scheme is great for the forest, but it is also great for team cohesion and development. By finding a fun and creative way to raise money, Whitespectre demonstrated a commitment to nature and to nurturing its team in equal measure.

There are many fun ways for corporate partners to engage in fundraising. If you are thinking of a charitable scheme for the new year, please feel free to give me a call (01309 691292) or pop me an email. I’d love to hear from you!

In the meantime, I’m away to dust off my running shoes.