Lakeside Shopping Centre has donated £500 of sports coaching to Beacon Hill School in South Ockendon, enabling many hours of extra sport for its young disabled students before they compete in the Panathlon Challenge Final on July 1st.
Beacon Hill qualified for the Essex Final of the Panathlon Challenge, a mini –paralympic style competition for young disabled people, at a recent competition at Riverside Sports Centre in Chelmsford. They must now prepare to compete against the other Essex finalists including teams from Loughton, Harlow and Witham.
Beacon Hill Thurrock Team
Brandon Mullin, PE teacher at Beacon Hill school said, “We are delighted that Lakeside are once again supporting us this year and we thank them for supporting us and the Panathlon charity. Our students are excited about getting to the final and we are hoping we can win the trophy and bring it back to Thurrock!”
The Panathlon Challenge charity (www.panathlon.com) provides free sports equipment, coaching sessions and competitions across Essex and is supported by Lakeside Shopping Centre with a grant of £3,000 this year. Sophie Scott, Marketing Manager at Lakeside said, “We are delighted to be supporting the Panathlon Challenge again this year, helping young disabled people in Essex benefit from our investment in sports equipment and competitions.”
The Panathlon Challenge is now in its tenth successful year of delivering sporting opportunities and “mini-paralympic” type competitions for young disabled sports people and around 125 athletes aged between 8 and 18, will compete against each other each day. The event goes ahead with the help of investment from the Jack Petchey Foundation, Essex County Council and Lakeside Shopping Centre who are supporting the Thurrock and Chelmsford teams.
Panathlon will invest around £30,000 in sports equipment, coaching sessions and multi-sports competitions in Essex during 2010, creating sporting opportunities for disabled youngsters in eight school sport partnership areas.
Find out more about Panathlon Challenge at www.panathlon.com