KAI WILL RUN 500 MILES!?

EDIT 07/08/2020: I NEED YOUR HELP FOLKS! https://twitter.com/okhinds/status/1291784551115771905?s=20

EDIT 21/08/2020: YOU'VE OFFICIALLY COVERED ME FOR THE FULL 500, FOLKS! THANK YOU SO MUCH ❤ https://twitter.com/okhinds/status/1296846030475071493?s=20


TL;DR VERSION: I got into drama school BUT I'm £10K short of the course fees, so please sponsor me to run 500 miles before October!

Well, now I want the full story!?

Okay, so now is maybe the worst possible time to be starting a personal fundraiser. I know. But hear me out.

I'm going to run 500 miles in order to fund my place at drama school, and I'm going to do this before term starts on the 5th October 2020.

Er...why?

Well. I've been offered a place at drama school The MTA for professional training in acting and musical theatre. Dream come true! Except the course fee of £32000 isn't eligible for any sort of student loan, and the 50% scholarship that I'd planned on applying for isn't currently available because of the whole...global pandemic going on. I have some money saved up, but long story short - I'm at least £10,000 away from being able to fund the course fees (let alone living costs!).

Okay...why running then? Why not walk it?

Musical theatre training is hardcore. The course will include 3.5 hours of dance class every day, so I will need to have some serious stamina as well as strong core and leg strength just to get through it. This fundraiser will help to prepare me for that as well!

Running is also a super contender for good mental health and wow, was there ever an incentive to keep my mental health up like being a few thousand pounds short of a picnic.

And....500 miles? Are you insane? You only started running in January?

Honestly. I just really like the song.

Right. And how are you planning on actually running the 500 miles?

Aha! I have a Very Technical two-phased plan!

I'm partway through a Couch-to-10-K training plan at the moment, currently landing at around 5K or 3.1 miles. I've calculated that by the time I finish that, I'll have run 102 miles. So I've based my 500-mile-strong running plan around that.

Phase 1:
- Complete my 10K training plan, which will take eight weeks and roughly 102 miles.
- Alternate "running" days, where I'll do a C-2-10K session, and "maintenance" days where I'll run 1 mile in order to build up tolerance to running every day. 
- Track each of my runs on Fitbit, and post brief daily updates and larger weekly updates of how many miles I've done and how many are left.

Phase 2: 
- Run the remaining 398 miles! This will take me the remaining twelve weeks.
- By now I will be used to running every day, so I'll run every day.
- This will average out to roughly 4.5 miles a day, but there will be some days where I run 5 miles and some where I run 3 miles.
- Continue to track my runs on Fitbit, post daily and weekly updates etc.

All of the data can be found here , and I'll be updating that sheet daily as I rack miles up. Exciting, huh? (...no?)

(EDIT 07/08/2020 - I NEED YOUR HELP, FOLKS!

A possible knee injury has me out of action for at least a few days - I'll be doing virtual "miles" in the meantime but here is how you can help! https://twitter.com/okhinds/status/1291784551115771905?s=20 )


But why should my money fund your course fees? What else are you doing?

Well, as I mentioned - this is the worst possible time to be going around asking for money, and it shows. As well as starting this fundraiser I've been researching into grants, trusts, scholarships, bursaries, the lot. I am going to apply for as much as I can, and write to as many potential philanthropists as I can find. However it does seem, right now at least, that a lot of funding is unavailable or has been redirected justly to Covid-19 causes.

In the meantime, I will continue to look for anything available that I can apply for- I've got five months until term starts, and at least a year until I'm definitely flat broke, so, um. There's still hope. In all honesty though, as well as running 500 miles I will be actively reaching out to potential sponsors, trusts, grant-givers, industry professionals and general philanthropists. I've set my fundraising target to £5k, but like I said before I'll need to raise £10,000 for my course fees and that doesn't include living costs. 

It would be completely amazing if this fundraiser raises enough that I can slowly start to increase my fundraising goal towards £10K!


Ugh, okay, fine. But why should I sponsor you? You, specifically?

In recent years it's become clear that there is a desire in theatre, musical theatre and film to portray transgender stories. However, there is not always the same desire to cast actual trans actors within those parts. This came to light twice in January 2020 alone, with Donmar Warehouse and Sell-A-Door both casting cis male actors to play trans roles. 

Luckily there are also companies and theatre creators out there who are fighting to get trans performers seen and heard (for example, the new musical of The Danish Girl  that I was lucky enough to sing on a demo for, thanks to the fantastic Trans Voices Cabaret ) but it seems that the casting pool for trans actors is apparently too narrow.

How can we simultaneously be telling trans stories, without actually including trans individuals in telling them? I've said before that if the casting pool is too small, expand it. Please help me to make it a little bit wider by getting this trans actor through training.

If you've made it all the way through, then first of all: THANK YOU. It's incredibly nerve wracking to be looking for funding at a time like this, so if you are in a position to give anything at all then I would appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. 

There are a couple of ways you could help out, here. If you'd like to make a donation, here are some ideas:

♦  A single donation of any amount would be fantastic!
♦  Sponsor me 1 pence per mile, which would come to £5
♦  Sponsor me 5 pence per mile, which would come to £25
♦  Sponsor me 7 pence per mile, which would come to £35
♦  Sponsor me 10 pence per mile, which would come to a whopping £50!

In an ideal world, people would be able to sponsor me 20p or 50p per mile, or even £1 per mile (£500?! If you're someone out there with £500 to spare...please bless me) but the reality is that a lot of people simply don't have money to give. If you're able to even share this page, it would mean so much to me. 

I'll be updating daily with my run data, and will post bigger weekly updates about how I'm doing and to thank those who have donated. Again, if you've got this far - THANK YOU.

Kai x