The power of community involvement

By Emma Peterson.

Discover how LRWA’s Charity Team Challenge grew from a pandemic-era event into a powerful campaign that brings hundreds of professionals together for a good cause.

The Liquid Roofing and Waterproofing Association (LRWA) is the “authoritative voice for liquid roofing and waterproofing in the UK.”

Founded in 1979, the association brings together manufacturers, contractors, installers, service providers and technical professionals to support the liquid-applied roofing and waterproofing trades. What does this support look like?

LRWA not only provides training and technical resources to improve the competence and quality of the industry, but they also bring the sector together for community support initiatives. One such initiative is their Charity Team Challenge. To learn more about this give-back initiative, we hosted Sarah Spink, CEO of LRWA, for an episode of Roofing Road Trips®.

The Charity Team Challenge was developed in 2020. LRWA was looking for an event they could host even with the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to the challenge's creation. In the Charity Team Challenge, industry professionals are challenged to gather a team of ten. Then, over the course of a three-week period, that team aims to log as many kilometres as they can by running, walking, swimming or cycling to win points. And the entire event fundraises for LandAid, a charity working to end youth homelessness.

That first year, there were six teams of ten that participated. Sarah recalled, “It was free to enter and we were kind of guessing, we didn’t know if it would work.” But the event struck a chord with the industry. Sarah explained, “Our industry gets really competitive and this created a friendly competition for a good cause...We’ve had so many people really strategising about this, for example, we had one competitor go to the Alps, get on a bike, do the descent of the Alps and in just over 30 minutes they smashed everybody else's distance because it was so steep.”

Now, six years later, the most recent Charity Team Challenge saw over 200+ participants. Sarah shared, “It’s amazing to go from six teams to 21. And with that growth, we’ve been able to expand our charitable efforts, we’ve raised over 50,000 pounds for LandAid!” Looking back at the way this event has grown, Sarah feels immense pride for her team and LRWA’s members, “Every year I look at Chris Bain, our social media manager who helped come up with this idea and I tell him how proud I am that we put the time into creating this. Because a lot of time and effort has been put into keeping the momentum of this event and it’s had such an incredible impact.” She continued, “And I also feel immense pride in LRWA’s membership, they get so into it and it shows what an amazing industry this is. We’ve only been able to keep doing this because they get involved year after year.”

Listen to the whole episode or Watch the recording to learn more about LRWA’s annual Charity Team Challenge!