Greenhouse Sports, the sports and mentoring charity, can today reveal that it has smashed through its fundraising target of £30,000 after Great Britain Rugby League legend Jamie Peacock successfully completed his Double Marathon in aid of the Charity on Friday March 5.

Greenhouse Sports and Jamie Peacock have now raised over £60,000, to fund two full-time Sports coaches for schools in London’s poorest areas.

Greenhouse Sports and Jamie Peacock designed a unique route for the Double Marathon after his initial plan of running Bristol’s Green Man Ultramarathon was scuppered by Coronavirus restrictions.

The route started and finished at the Greenhouse Sports Centre in Marylebone, and took in numerous stops along the way including schools that Greenhouse partners with, as well as locations like the London Stadium and the Copperbox Arena, where the Rugby League World Cup will take place later this year.

Jamie ran the course with Simon Dent, the founder of sports marketing agency Dark Horses.

Jamie Peacock added: “Greenhouse does a really important job by directly improving the lives of some of the poorest children in London. Greenhouse is unique - their coaches are more than just sports facilitators: they’re mentors for kids who form relationships that last for years. I’m so glad to be helping to put another coach in another school.”

Alongside fundraising from Jamie and Simon, Greenhouse Sports set up the #RunForOne challenge to encourage corporations to take part in a challenge and fundraise on the usual date of the charity's annual Corporate Dodgeball tournament, which, like so much else, was cancelled in 2020 and postponed until Autumn this year.

Members of teams of 5-10 runners from corporations including Barclays, Bloomberg and HSBC were challenged to each run for an hour and log their distance hoping to achieve the furthest aggregate distance as a team. The fundraising challenge was to support that target of £30k.

In total 39 teams with 266 runners completed a combined distance of 2690km, from 14 different corporations. The winning team of #RunforOne 2021 with an average team distance of 14.83km was a team from Marshall Wace who are also the current Dodgeball Champions.

Greenhouse Sports use a unique combination of mentoring and sport to help young people living in poverty reach their full potential, both at school and then into employment.

Currently there are 4 million children in the UK living in poverty, and these children’s circumstances are impacted more by Covid-19, with worse mental health outcomes, academic outcomes and employment prospects.

Greenhouse Sports work in schools where at least 67% of pupils live in areas of high deprivation.

Beatrice Butsana-Sita, CEO of Greenhouse Sports, said: “The impact that Jamie and Simon’s incredible achievements will have on children’s lives cannot be understated. Our unreserved thanks and admiration go to him for going the extra mile for Greenhouse Sports, what a fantastic achievement!”

“In this year of all years, Jamie’s run is so important. Over the last 12 months kids have missed out on education, physical exercise and relationships while being out of school.

"Sport is proven to help social skills, confidence and learning capabilities so to have funding going directly to providing a professional sports coach to a school is fantastic news.”

“Jamie and Simon’s 52-mile challenge and target inspired so many. Especially the 39 #RunforOne teams from the businesses who would normally be contesting our annual fundraising corporate dodgeball tournament at this time of year.

"Their lung-busting efforts and support has really boosted this campaign and it is so uplifting at this difficult time to applaud these runners and tell them they will have funded two more full-time Greenhouse coaches for London schools.”

“A huge thank you to all those who donated at a time when many are having to stretch their pounds and pennies, including players of People’s Postcode Lottery, who continue to help Greenhouse impact thousands of kids’ lives every year.”

If you would like to donate to this great cause, please follow the link here to Jamie and Simon’s JustGiving page.