National Citizens Service volunteers to crawl around in onesies for Blue Cross

A team of 11 friends donned their animal onesies and crawled 40,000 metres in a bid to raise money to help homeless pets.

The group, who met volunteering for the National Citizens Service dressed as frogs, tigers, leopards and foxes to complete a sponsored crawl in Eastleigh.

They were completing the crawl in aid of Blue Cross Southampton in West End and wriggled through the streets in Lakeside to raise more than £500.

Rosie Lynch, the group organiser, said: “We all love animals and many of us have pets of our own, so we really wanted to do something to help Blue Cross to help as many pets as possible to find loving homes and be well cared for while they are looking for one.

"We thought the sponsored crawl was a bit of different way to raise money and it was a chance to get our animal onesies on – I’m was an owl.”

Others in the team included Sophie Crosswell, Selina Nessa, Megan Hawkins, Anna Ignatova, Maria Evans, Beth Holden-Brown, Jack Jones and Ryan Hammett.

Ryan said: “We wanted to do something a bit different, get people smiling and maybe laughing as well so they may feel like it was worth donating some money.

"We even got a couple of leads and were ‘walking’ each other at one point and it did go really well we’re all happy with how much we raised and hopefully it can make a small difference to animals in the city.”

Danielle Mason, from Southampton Blue Cross, added: “The sponsored crawl is definitely one of the more unusual fundraising events we’ve heard of.

"We’re really pleased that these guys have decided to raise money for Blue Cross and hope lots of people go along to support them. We rely entirely on donations, so events like this really do make a huge difference to all the pets we care for here at the centre.”