WARWICK University students travelled across Europe as they took part in a ‘jailbreak’ to help disabled and terminally ill children.
The annual Jailbreak event held by university students on February 10-11 raised more than £5,500 for Newlife a charity for disabled children.
Teams made up of 50 students competed to see who could get the furthest away from the university as possible in 36 hours, without using any of their own money.
This year’s winning team of Paula Tel Hidalgo, a first year economics student, and Lennart Greiner, an exchange student in the School of Law, aka ‘Team Blue Waffle’ travelled an amazing 2952.10 kilometres to Santa Cruz de la Palma in the Canary Islands.
Paula and Lennart raised money by going door-to-door in Canley before catching a Megabus to Manchester.
They then caught a train from Manchester Piccadilly to Manchester Airport, where the determined duo spent 12 hours raising enough cash to catch a flight to the island off the coast of Morocco.
Team ‘Don’t send us back to Coventry’ travelled 1440.30 by reaching Stockholm in Sweden to take second place.
While third were team ‘Wally and Wendy’ made it 959.00 km to Geneva in Switzerland.
Meredith Lambert, Newlife’s Midlands regional fundraising and awareness manager said: “This is a great event and we are thrilled those who took part raised so much to help disabled and terminally ill children in Warwickshire.
“Every penny raised will go towards funding vital equipment such as specialist beds, seating and wheelchairs.
“We really want to help change the lives of more disabled children and we are calling on local people groups, clubs and companies to get involved, donate or fundraise for Newlife so that these children can get what they need.”
