Jaiden (9) gets on his bike to help out school
Over £1000 raised
A nine-year-old Perthshire lad has raised over £1000 for his school and his fellow pupils by cycling as much as 16 miles every day.
Jaiden Buckett from Dowally decided he wanted to do something to raise cash for The Royal School of Dunkeld during the lockdown and resolved to ride his bike a total distance of 63 miles in seven days.
He initially set out to raise £250 for the school’s parent partnership group by cycling from his home to local villages like Ballinluig and back again.
But as a growing number of supporters pledged donations, Jaiden started covering even greater distances each day to close the gap on his goal.
Proud mum Michelle told the PA he was so keen to reach his target he ended up exceeding it by 17 miles by the end of the week.
Michelle told the PA: “Jaiden had heard the parent partnership group would not be able to do its usual fundraising this year because of COVID-19 so he suggested doing something to raise money for it another way.
“We normally do a circuit around where we live and it’s just shy of nine miles so he decided he wanted to do that for seven days.
“I said I thought it might be a bit much for him but he said he really wanted to try it.
“So he did that for the first few days and then he started saying he wanted to do more miles as the week went on. He ended up doing 16 miles one day and doing 80 miles over the seven days.
“He just kept pushing. Every day he was like ‘let’s go, let’s go.’ We’re extremely proud of him.”
Yesterday Jaiden’s JustGiving page showed 68 supporters had donated a total of £1052 to the school’s parent partnership group.
To view the routes Jaiden took or to make a donation go to www. justgiving.com/fundraising/ michelle-buckett2