Ellie's Super Swim to Help the Homeless

Hi. My name is Ellie.  I am 8 years old and I go to Putney High School.  My school is encouraging all of us to take part in their Putney Pledge Challenge.

The Putney Pledge Challenge is all about thinking what we can do to develop our generosity/social responsibility superpower. I want to help the homeless in Putney (by supporting PLOD - more info about what PLOD is can be found below) and to do this I'm going to swim 10kms in 30 days. That's 303 lengths of the Putney Leisure Centre pool (each length is 33m)! That's over 75 lengths a week!

I will post weekly updates on my tally as well as a few pictures. I started my challenge on Wednesday 9 June and hope to complete it before 8 July.

Please sponsor me to complete this challenging challenge and help those less fortunate than ourselves.

Thank you.  Love from Ellie x

About PLOD

PLOD Foundation works to support the homeless, refugees and asylum seekers, and children who have been bereaved. PLOD Foundation came about in memory of Olivia's father who passed away when she was 11, and PLOD is an acronym he used to use to refer to her family, with each letter being the first initial of her Dad's name, her Mum's name, her own name and her younger brother's name. Since PLOD Foundation started, we have provided emergency supplies to over 1,000 refugees in refugee camps across Greece, we have visited and volunteered in a refugee camp in Northern Greece, support over 100 homeless people during the pandemic with more than 8,000 hot meals, toiletries, clothing, housing support and a support network.

PLOD is currently focusing on providing longer-term support to the homeless, running workshops that help develop skills and confidence to adapt to living in accommodation after living on the streets. The workshops focus on things such as cooking on a budget and giving everyone recipes and ingredients to take home with them, to managing your money and budgeting. This is a project we are starting in Wandsworth and hope to roll out to other boroughs in London during 2021. PLOD is also working on increasing support for school-age children who have been bereaved through improving access to counselling and bereavement support. This project is on-going and we hope to secure funding to start offering small bereavement grants to schools in 2022.

Any money donated to PLOD goes straight back into PLOD's work. PLOD is entirely run on a voluntary basis, with volunteers on hand to assist when projects require help. Thank you for taking the time to read about PLOD and for making a donation to this appeal! We're incredibly grateful.