by Rebecca Hannant
A year eight student at Holderness Academy has been awarded a Blue Peter badge after helping to raise money and awareness for a charity that supports children and their families who have limb differences.
Throughout summer, Mason and his friend Nathan built a bike with the support of the charity R-evolution, an initiative that supports cycling by helping people with training, bike maintenance, and offering bikes to those in need.
Mason and Nathan were able to build a bike using spare parts offered by the charity while gaining hands-on experience learning how different parts of bikes work.
Mason then donated the bike to the LimbBo Foundation. He said he was inspired to support the charity after the help he and his family received when his brother Max lost a leg in a motorbike accident in 2020.
LimbBo held a raffle at one of its adventure days where people paid £5 each for a chance of winning the bike. In total, the fundraiser raised £780 for the charity. For his efforts, Mason was awarded a silver Blue Peter badge by the BBC children’s show for being kind and helping others, including fundraising and donating a bike.
Mason said: “I received the opportunity to build a bike with the help of some engineers from R-evolution. Each week we built different parts of the bike until it was finished. We decided to give it to LimbBo because it’s so important to me because my brother only has three limbs.
“When we go to LimbBo everyone is missing at least one limb, so we can be around and support each other. Last year we went to Camp LimbBo, and it was fun. I even made a friend.”
Re-evolution also supports people in active travel, combating climate change with horticultural activities such as growing crops and gardening, and recycling. It also supports individuals who are struggling to find work, want to gain skills, or want to engage in training courses for career changes.