The Bishop’s Castle Challenge Walk supports charities every year and we are proud to say we have raised over £7,500 to date. 

This year we are supporting Bishop’s Castle Foodbank and The SpArC Leisure Centre & Theatre. 

The Bishop’s Castle Foodbank was set up in March 2020 and is a direct response to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. It is now the only foodbank covering this large area including The Clun Valley, Churchstoke in Powys, the Long  Mynd and Stiperstones hills. The foodbank helps an average 45 families per week and is expecting more local people to use its services as the hike in food, energy and petrol prices hit. 

The SpArC (Sports & Arts in the Community) Charity was launched a few years ago in answer to a threat by Shropshire Council to close the facility. The charity supports leisure centre with its pool and theatre, buying equipment and helping upgrade the premises. Swimming pools are run at a loss but are a great community asset, catering to the local primary school children as well as families and older people keeping fit. 

Health & fitness at the heart of the Leisure Centre with people being prescribed activities by local doctors, fitness and dance classes and indoor sports. 

The SpArC Theatre is run by Enterprise South West Shropshire and has a varied and ambitious yearly programme from Opera to “Flicks in the Sticks”, and has a workshop for children. 

It is vital for such a rural area to support facilities like this which are so popular and necessary in the community. 

Although we were originally raising money for the Town Hall, this has been well supported during the pandemic by Government grants for retail, leisure & hospitality. So we felt it was more appropriate to support two local charities which also cater for a widespread population in this very rural area.