A rowing club in Fulham has raised enough money from its 100 mile charity row to provide a year’s worth of access to rowing for 25 underprivileged children who would otherwise struggle to get into the sport.
The Fulham Reach Boat Club, located just off Hammersmith Bridge on the north bank of the river, said their whopping 100 mile relay row often felt like “battling through four seasons in one day” as they put in 10 hour rowing shifts throughout blistering heat and thunderstorms to complete the challenge.
The charity row, which took place between Oxford and London between the 9th to 12th June, involved rowing four marathons over the course of four days, and was lead by 50 of FRBC’s members, including Olympic rowing champion (and FRBC ambassador) Mohamed Sbihi MBE, who won gold at the 2016 Rio olympics.
“We’ve just finished the four marathons (100 miles over four days) from Oxford to Hammersmith,” David Fitzherbert, FRBC’s chairman, told the Evening Standard. “50 members and supporters of the club joined in this endeavour braving heat, hideous blisters, thunder and lightning, and up to ten hours per day from start to finish. Believe it or not it has been enormous fun.”
The mammoth charity row was so successful in its fundraising that it raised a total of £40,000 — well over their initial goal of £25,000 — which is enough to fund 25 junior bursaries, allowing underprivileged children to learn how to row on the Thames for free for a year.
“Being able to row on the Thames is a privilege and it's much more than just a sport, it teaches your teamwork, coordination, patience and adaptability. But it shouldn't be a privilege and should be available to all,” said Zoha Tapia, one of the Row100 participants. Zoha only started rowing in 2021 and describes it as the “first ever sporting activity I have ever done.”
Another chuffed Row100 participant is Gilat Levy, whose son started rowing thanks to FRBC’s connections with his state school, West London Free School in Hammersmith. “It was lovely to see him and his friends on the water and how Fulham Reach gave these school kids the possibility to try out something which always seemed beyond their reach,” Levy said. “We rowed this marathon to make sure that talented local kids can continue to row at our club and develop themselves, competitively or recreationally.”
FRBC’s ability to provide for state schooled and underprivileged kids who want to get into rowing has been so successful that its helped secure children full rowing scholarships to esteemed schools like Eton, or universities such as Stanford in the US.
As well its work with underprivileged children, Fulham Reach Boat Club also has a ‘Boats Not Bars’ scheme which aims to provide young offenders with indoor rowing facilities so that teams of prisoners can row against eachother in a form of healthy competition. The scheme was so well recieved they even held an indoor regatta in 2019, with rowing Olympian and former prison officer Debbie Flood turning up to give moral support.
