River Legacy is a charity which provides funding for causes within paddlesports in England and Wales. They support numerous paddling events and in doing so are able to raise these funds. Everyone involved in River Legacy is a volunteer and there is a huge amount of work that goes on behind the scenes. I wanted to write an article to raise awareness of who River Legacy are and what exactly it is that they do.
What’s the story behind River Legacy?
If you go onto the history page of the River Legacy website – you will find the full story sharing how the charity was originally founded. I won’t go into all the details but essentially a very dedicated man by the name of Steve Wales and some good friends of his supported an event known as Dee Tour in the early 90s. They did this by providing the equipment to host the party for the event and in turn were able to raise some money by doing so. This led to Steve forming the River Legacy Trust.
River Legacy has been a registered charity (Charity Number 1146997) since 2002.
What exactly do they do?
The original aim of the trust was to raise money to improve access to rivers by means of land purchase. In recent years most there has been a move towards using the money raised to support a wide range of projects within paddling.
Most of the money that is raised is done via running a bar at paddling events. The bar is set up and run by the River Legacy volunteers and then the profit raised goes into the charity to be used to support paddlers. Since 2017, over £10,000 of funding has been provided by River Legacy to paddling related projects in England and Wales.
Who benefits?
The money from River Legacy has been used to help fund environmental projects such as Save the River Conwy, support clubs to build new clubhouses and build the infrastructure around access points, purchase gear to be used by club members and help communities to run various localised events.
The main marquee that is owned by River Legacy has been used for a number of events such as being the ‘dining marquee’ for the GB freestyle academy youth camp over this Summer. Volunteers put up and took down the marquee so that this event could take place. Marquees are expensive as are paying for them to be put up. Through the generous loaning of their equipment and volunteer time, it reduces costs involved in running these grassroots events and projects, making it more accessible for all.
How can you get involved?
The easiest way to support River Legacy is to spend money at their bar! River Legacy supports a number of annual events including Tryweryn Festival and Euro Open. By spending money at the bar on these events, you are supporting paddling!
River Legacy is always looking for more volunteers to help out. If you are interested in doing so – do get in touch via their website or Instagram page.
Finally if you have a paddling project that needs support and would like to apply for a grant, then do get in touch through their ‘applying for funding‘ tab on their website.
Thank you
Thank you to all the volunteers at River Legacy for all that you do!
One reply on “River Legacy – The charity that helps people in paddlesports”
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