Hippos, indoor rowing and more help feed Kafue project

Several important fundraising events came to a close including Great Britain’s Leander Club contributed an excellent £8,900, raised through their Hippo auction.

The pink hippo is the iconic symbol of the Leander Club in Henley-on-Thames, Great Britain.  As a part of their 2018 bicentennial celebration, the club created 200 papier mache hippos, each of approximately 300cm. Read our full story about the hippos here. 

In September, the Hippos were auctioned off and the proceeds have now been donated to the Kafue River & Rowing Centre. 

“The resulting ‘works of art’ are quite amazing – the innovation and the art work have been outstanding,” says Leander Club President Mike Sweeney. “We trust that the Kafue River and Rowing project will continue to go from strength to strength and we are delighted to have been able to make this small contribution.”

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Several other members of the rowing family have also become regular contributors to the project. The Concept2 Holiday Challenge encourages people to row, ski or bike more than 100,000 kilometres between November 22 and December 24. Concept2 then donates $.02 for every kilometre with participants able to pick their charity from Concept2’s list. This event raised more than $7400(USD) for Kafue.

World Rowing’s photographer Detlev Seyb (My Rowing Photos) donated 100€ to the project from the sale of his 2019 rowing calendars. And RowPerfect UK added a “Donate to Kafue” link on their website, sending 39 referrals to the Kafue donation page. 

The Kafue River & Rowing Centre is a project in partnership with WWF, World Wildlife Fund, to bring together water conservation research, education and sport. It will provide a neutral meeting place for all stakeholders on the river to seek water-use solutions, together. It will also bring rowing to the local communities and other users of the Centre. For more information, or to donate, click here.