Charity Zumbathon raises £660 for Bury Cancer Support Centre

Two of Bury’s well-loved fitness faces joined forces with local ladies and their fellow instructors for a five-hour Zumbathon that raised £660 for charity.

Fitness instructors Julie Porter and Debbie Young-Browning first started teaching the Latin American-inspired dance workout at Castle Leisure Centre in 2010, before branching out into the local community as part of the I Will If You Will (IWIYW) campaign, which is led by Bury Council with National Lottery funding from Sport England.

The pair set up the event at Castle Leisure Centre to raise much-needed funds for Bury Cancer Support Centre and celebrate five years of teaching Zumba together.

More than 80 women took part and, during the five-hour stint, Julie and Debbie were joined on the stage by fellow IWIYW instructors Tanya Manock, Mandy Labrianidis, Zoe McAulay, Anna Snowden, Diana Askew and Rebecca Slatter.

Sandra Handley, IWIYW participant and keen baker, provided a selection of Zumba-themed cakes to help Julie and Debbie celebrate the occasion with the women and girls who joined in on the day.

Julie said: “We’re still overwhelmed by the support and donations we received on the day, and the money is still coming in. It was fantastic to see so many faces smiling back at us and we hope the money raised makes a real difference at Bury Cancer Support Centre.

“We knew we wanted to celebrate five years of Zumba in Bury and we couldn’t have imagined doing this without our biggest fans and our fellow instructors. We’d just like to thank everyone for digging out their best fancy dress and dancing with us, whether it was for five minutes or the full five hours.”

For details of Zumba sessions taking place throughout Bury, and for more information about I Will If You Will, visit www.iwillifyouwill.co.uk

ENDS

Press release issued: 28 April 2015.

Picture: Let them eat cake: Debbie Young-Browning (left) and Julie Porter cut the Zumba cake, provided by Zumbathon participant Sandra Handley.

Note to editors:

I Will If You Will is a programme designed to help the women and girls of Bury get more active, more often. It aims to overcome the many practical barriers to being active, while encouraging women to support each other by joining the I Will If You Will community.

Phase One of the campaign was delivered by Bury Council with £2.3 million of National Lottery funding from Sport England. For Phase Two of the campaign, Sport England has allocated a further £2 million to extend delivery over the next two years.

I Will If You Will is a programme focused on changing women’s and girls’ behaviours towards taking part in sport and physical activity with the aim of getting more women and girls being more active, more often, and helping improve the health and wellbeing of people in Bury. In doing so the ambition is to create a guide on how to practically go about engaging with women and girls locally and the implications of doing so.