About Jason

Checking the route

My name is Jason Arday, I am a 24 year old Sports Lecturer at Richmond upon Thames College from Clapham, South London, and an alumni of St Mary’s University College, Twickenham. I have been an avid fundraiser for 7 years, and in that time I have been very lucky to be a part of several fundraising initiatives which have raised substantial amounts for charity.

At the age of 17, I had what I can only describe as life changing experience. Over the Christmas period in December 2002, I was invited to volunteer at a local homeless shelter, what I saw, was to change my perception of what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. After that experience I set myself the aim of helping as many charities as I can over the course of my lifetime, and I set myself the target of raising a £250,000 before the age of 50, which thanks too so many people I am well on my way to achieving.

In the present, I have worked very closely with Shooting Stars Children’s Hospice for the last 4 years, and I was taken to the Hospice in Hampton, and this was a very humbling experience to witness was this charity does first hand! In the last 3 years whilst at University we were able to put on several fundraisers which raised just under £4,000, this proved to be a fantastic event which raised awareness of what the charity does and how it impacts hundreds of children’s lives every year.

The connection to Shelter is quite a recent one, 2 years ago whilst I was volunteering in a homeless shelter over Christmas, I came across a friend from Secondary School I had not seen for a couple of years, he had recently become homeless after a terrible sequence of events which led to him suffering from depression and becoming homeless. I introduced my friend to Shelter, who were able to provide him with emergency accommodation. Thanks to Shelter’s on-going work, he has just recently been found permanent accommodation, this has given him the opportunity to rebuild his life and move forward. However, without the tireless work of this charity, this would not have been possible.