Kids Planet has launched a  summer fundraising campaign to help support the UK’s number one family attraction, Chester Zoo, due to its significant losses since Covid-19 and its drastic restrictions on visitors for the foreseeable future.

Kids Planet Summer Stampede will enable this nursery group to give financial support by adopting as many animals as it can. To do this, 7,000 children – aged two to five – will be collecting sponsorship as they walk, stomp, hop and leap a collective 1700 miles.

Kids Planet CEO Clare Roberts explains the thinking around this campaign:

‘We currently have 52 nurseries based in UK, with many located within easy travelling distance of Chester Zoo. It’s an incredibly popular attraction for us, our staff and many of our families. Its recent plight, due to lockdown and reduced numbers of visitors, struck a chord with our staff and parents and so we came up with this idea. Since launching earlier this month, we reached our first target for £2000 in the first ten days, so we’ve set ourselves an ambitious target of £20,000 and extended our fundraising activities across July and August.’

Childcare Director, Lucy Kaczmarska, added:

‘As part of our learning through play and child-centred activities, animals feature highly. Our Summer Stampede creates so many learning opportunities to support every age and stage of our children’s development from species, to sounds, to colours, to habitats, to behaviours; the list is endless.

‘Also, we wanted to do something that would encourage our children to keep active and enjoy the outdoors. Our nursery practitioners have wonderful imaginations and are already pulling out all the stops to ensure the children have a lot of fun along the way. We are looking forward to seeing a variety of ‘stampedes’ along the way.’

To encourage engagement Kids Planet will also share a survey with Chester Zoo which will include asking children what their favourite wild animal is and why. Each nursery will conduct its own fun poll and the results will be used during the adoption selection process at the end of the Summer Stampede fundraising campaign at the end of August.

For those families who are not part of Kids Planet, but want to help support Chester Zoo, they can simply get involved by reading the Chester Zoo Summer Stampede blog post on the Kids Planet website where they will find all the details including a downloadable sponsorship form.

Continuing, Clare says:

‘Our name, Kids Planet, is a constant reminder to all, that children are the most important considerations when we look at the impacts, good and bad, on our world today. The animal kingdom and their survival, or threatened extinction, can teach all of us a thing or two about sustainability and environmental responsibilities. We also believe children should learn the importance of giving and experience the wonderful feelings that it can instil to do something for the good of others.

‘Overall, we want our children to have fun and this campaign has certainly provided that – sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s enjoying themselves more, the children or the staff.’

Head of Conservation Education and Engagement, Charlotte Smith expressed her delight at the support:

‘Thank you SO much for supporting us with your Kids Planet Summer Stampede. It really means the world to us that you want to support Chester Zoo at this time so that we can continue our crucial work in preventing extinction of amazing animals and plants through our science, conservation and education work.

‘The love, the passion and the energy shown by so many people all over the UK, has completely humbled us. We’ve been shown overwhelming kindness when times are hard for everyone, not just us, and we’re incredibly grateful to those fundraising on our behalf. Each and every fundraiser is an inspiration and is making a real difference.

‘We fully support Kids Planet’s aims to inspire children to care for others, including animals and plants that we share our world with and hope the children, staff and parents all enjoy their walks over the next few weeks and months.  We can’t wait to see what you get up to!’

To support this campaign you can make a donation or get involved by visiting Kids Planet’s Summer Stampede crowdfunding page or to just watch the fun you can join the Kids Planet team on Facebook and Twitter. To find out more details about the Kids Planet nurseries in your area you can visit the Kids Planet website.