Radcliffe youngsters raise funds for charity by taking part in skydive

Grace Pope, 12, from Radcliffe and Tyler Love, 11, from Bo'Ness in Scotland, have had a keen interest in skydiving for some time because their parents, Nathan Pope, 32, and Kerri Roma Anderson, 33, do skydiving as a hobby.

As a special treat, Nathan and Kerri decided to take their children to Denmark so they had the chance to skydive. The legal age to do a tandem skydive in the UK is 16 whereas the rules are less stringent in the Scandinavian country.

And rather than just taking part in the skydive, the duo wanted to raise money for children who won't receive anything at Christmas and for the Christmas food banks.

They managed to raise a total of £1,200 so far and they are still gaining donations each day.

Speaking about the skydive, Nathan, who owns this own skydiving business, Skydive North West in the Lake District, and is Grace’s dad, said: “Me and my girlfriend, Kerri, started skydiving as a hobby and my daughter, Grace, has always wanted to skydive. Since my girlfriend started skydiving, her son Tyler has been interested in it too.

Tyler taking part in the skydive (Image: Nathan Pope)“But the kids can’t do it in the UK until they are 16 because it isn’t a legal thing to do so we took them over to Denmark. My girlfriend asked them if they wanted to do it for charity and she has quite a big following on TikTok and Instagram, so they managed to raise over £1,200.

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“And they are still raising money as we speak; the target was £200 but they have gone way past what they were aiming at.

“We knew that Christmas was approaching and that some kids don’t get presents and that was the aim of it, and we will be taking them to foodbanks over Christmas as well so they can support people in need.”

Grace taking part in the skydive (Image: Nathan Pope)At first the four of them didn’t think they would be able to take part when they arrived in Denmark as the weather was bad on the Saturday but after looking around, they managed to get booked in for the Wednesday morning and flew home that same day.

Nathan said he is so proud of both Grace, who attends St Gabriel's High School, and Tyler for taking part in a skydive.

He said: “I own the skydive shop at Skydive North West up in the Lake District so Grace is up there with me most weekends so she sees it all the time and she was dead excited to do it and she didn’t think she would be able to until she was 16.

“Tyler was a little bit nervous, but Tyler is scared of heights and wouldn’t even look over a balcony so for him to do it, it was just amazing, to see him go up there face his fears and get it done.”

If you would like to donate to help them raise more funds for children this Christmas, you can do so here: www.paypal.com/paypalme/kerriroma.

To see pre-jumps and more videos of the duo taking to the skies go to TikTok @laughingboybase or @kerriroma

If you have a story or something you would like to highlight in the community, please email me at chloe.wilson@newsquest.co.uk or DM me on Twitter @chloewjourno.