FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

The Big Lent Walk is a challenge where we ask you to walk 200km over the 40 days of Lent and get sponsored to raise money to help people fighting extreme poverty globally. You can walk alone, with friends or your school-friends.

CAFOD and SCIAF are the official relief and development agencies of the Catholic Church for England, Wales and for Scotland, and we are both members of the global Caritas Internationalis family.

This year, CAFOD and SCIAF are teaming up to bring the Big Lent Walk to the whole of Great Britain!

Thousands of people from England, Wales and now Scotland will be tying up their purple laces and walking an incredible 200km this Lent to fight global poverty.

From John O’Groats to Land’s End, Dundee to Dover, and everywhere in between, we’ll be joining forces and telling poverty to take a hike.

So, sign up, tell your school, recruit your parish and put your best foot forward with the biggest group of Big Lent Walkers yet!

Visit the homepage to sign up now! 

You’ll get your very own fundraising page, and we’ll send you a welcome pack in January to help you plan your walk and raise as much sponsorship as possible. 

Some families, clubs, schools, and parishes have teamed up for the Big Lent Walk so that they can track their distance and fundraising milestones together. You don’t have to join a team, but it can add to the fun! 

If you want to join a team, or create a team page, you can do this when you set up your fundraising page! 

If you’ve already set up your page and want to join a team, click the 'edit page' button on your fundraising page and 'Team'. Then you can search for a team to join or create your own team!

Yes, you can start your challenge after Ash Wednesday. Most of our walkers are aiming to do 5k a day for 40 days in Lent, but if you start later you can either finish later, or do some extra kilometres on certain days during Lent to finish before Easter! 

Yes you can. Unfortunately, you can’t sign up and create a fundraising page if you are under 18, but find a grown up to sign up with, or ask your school to take part and you can definitely join in!

Every metre you travel to fight poverty counts. Getting up to make tea, gardening and walking to the shops all means you are going the distance. And you don’t have to be limited to walking or stepping – you can roll, cycle, dance or jump! 

In 2021, Julie, a CAFOD volunteer, adapted her Walk for Water challenge so that she could still take part!

You can also change your distance target to something more manageable for you. Please click 'edit page' and you should see a box where you can change the target.. 

If you’d prefer a less physical challenge altogether, you can still help us raise essential funds to fight poverty by sharing our Lent appeal with your parish.

Remember to let us know how you’re going the distance @CAFOD, @SCIAF using #biglentwalk

Visit our Big Lent Walk for Schools or Big Lent Walk for Parishes websites to sign up as a school or community.

You can search for your school or community using the "find a fundraiser" search on the home page. Start to type the name, town and postcode of your organisation and it should appear. 

If you are having problems finding your organisation, please get in touch with JustGiving at help@justgiving.com.

If you're taking on the Big Lent Walk individually and as part of your parish, you have two options:

1. Use Your Parish's Fundraising Page
   Join your parish's page to contribute to the collective goal. It's simple—just share this page with friends and family. The page manager handles updates and admin tasks, so you can focus on walking and fundraising.
2. Create Your Own Page
   Set up your own page to share your personal story and track your progress. Then, link it to your parish team to combine your efforts with theirs. See FAQ ‘Do I need to join a team?’ for more information on how to create your team.

Both options make a big difference—choose the one that works best for you!

You can use Strava, which links up with your fundraising page, or download another distance tracking app and add your distance to your fundraising page yourself. Simply look for the ‘Log Fitness’ button and enter your distance. This feature won't be available until Lent!

Remember you can also add your distance to the wallchart!

If you don’t want to use a distance tracker, you can also clock up 5k with: 

• a 45-60 minute walk 
• a 15 minute cycle 
• a 35 minute exercise class. 

You can! If you’d like to set a different distance target to 200km, please click 'edit page' and you should see a box where you can change the target.

Please email events@cafod.org.uk if you are having any problems. 

Unfortunately not, because this is a Lent challenge only the distance you walk from Ash Wednesday onwards count towards the challenge.

The good news is that you can link up with Strava or use the log fitness button on your page to easily add your distance once Lent begins, and it will display on your page.

It’s up to you! 

You are probably already doing 2-3k a day already as part of your normal daily activity so you can top this up to 5k, or commit to an extra 5k walk each day. 

It’s also absolutely fine to do over 5k one day, and less than 5k another, to reach a daily average of 5k if that is more convenient for you!

If you want to do that, you can. However, you could also space it out over a day. 

Or you could share the load with friends, family, your school or your parish. This event is for you to get creative with! 

Money donated through your fundraising page comes to us automatically, so you can focus on signing up those sponsors and we’ll handle the rest.

If you are fundraising for SCIAF your sponsorship will go to SCIAF and if you are fundraising for CAFOD your sponsorship will go to CAFOD.

When you raise £200 through your page, we’d love to send you a free gift as a special thank you. 

If you’d prefer not to receive this thank you, please let us know by emailing events@cafod.org.uk

You'll find a sponsorship form and other offline resources on our website. Make sure the date paid is filled in so we can claim Gift Aid. You can also download it here.

You can add offline funds when you edit your fundraising page – look for the 'edit page' button on your sponsorship target.

The sponsorship you raise will go to help families and communities overseas fight poverty. 

Our global network of local experts work alongside communities to deliver what those communities tell us they need, such as emergency food and shelter, access to clean water, or tools to fight the climate crisis. 

£10 can provide nutritious warm meals and shelter to refugees who have fled their homes due to conflict. 

£25 can give a child a school uniform, stationary and a school bag – simple, everyday items needed to attend lessons 

£50 can provide a family with emergency food following a disaster caused by climate change 

£200 can provide a life-changing loan – the first step in helping someone start their own business, or buy farming supplies 

£750 can help a remote community to establish their own supply of clean, safe water

When people make a donation to your page they will be asked to add a 'tip' to JustGiving. This tip means JustGiving are able to offer charities their services without a platform fee. If you wish to avoid this, you can. There is a piece of text that says, 'Enter Custom Amount' underneath the sliding bar. If you click that, you can set it to zero.

If you have made a tip to JustGiving and you didn't want to, you can ask for a refund by contacting help@justgiving.com.

The best place to start is the JustGiving help page. 

You can also email JustGiving Support help@justgiving.com

Make sure you are logged out of your JustGiving account on all browsers, then try to log in or sign up again.

If you are continuing the Big Lent Walk after Easter, you may go past the end date in the Strava app. 

But don’t worry, you can still add your daily distance manually to your fundraising page until you finish the challenge. 

Welcome to the Big Lent Walk! Your participation in this event is subject to the following terms and conditions:

1. CAFOD and SCIAF have teamed up to bring the Big Lent Walk to Great Britain. This is CAFOD’s privacy notice and this is SCIAF’s privacy notice.

2. The challenge and this microsite are hosted by JustGiving. This is JustGiving’s privacy policy.

3. If you sign up to the walk using an address with a Scottish postcode, CAFOD will pass your data onto SCIAF so that they can support you during the challenge. If you haven’t supported CAFOD in the past, CAFOD will anonymise your data on their own database once it has been passed to SCIAF.

4. You will receive emails containing updates, information and fundraising tips from JustGiving on behalf of CAFOD and SCIAF during this challenge.

5. Neither charity will share your data for marketing with any other organisation.

6. In signing up for this challenge, you understand that it is an event to raise sponsorship towards CAFOD and SCIAF’s vital work. Both charities will therefore encourage you to raise sponsorship and support you towards this aim, as well as completing the physical challenge.

7. If you sign up for the walk using an address with a Scottish postcode, you will receive emails from SCIAF to support you with the challenge and encourage you to raise sponsorship, in addition to the JustGiving emails.

8. If you sign up for the walk using a postcode for an address in England, Wales or anywhere else other than Scotland, you will receive emails from CAFOD to support you with the challenge and encourage you to raise sponsorship, in addition to the JustGiving emails.

9. If you are signing up as an individual, you will receive a Big Lent Walk welcome pack, including your laces on sign up, and a thank you postcard after the challenge, through the post automatically, even if you have opted out of post with either charity previously.

10. If you are signing up as a school or parish, you won’t receive laces automatically, but your welcome pack will be sent from SCIAF to addresses with a Scottish postcode, and from CAFOD to all other addresses.

11. You can update your communication preferences during the challenge directly with CAFOD. If you sign up to the challenge using an address with a Scottish postcode, after May 2024 you will need to get in touch with SCIAF to change your communication preferences.

12. The sponsorship you raise will be spent on fighting global poverty by SCIAF and CAFOD. CAFOD will receive the income from JustGiving along with participant data and make an income grant to SCIAF based on the funds raised from pages linked to a Scottish postcode.

13. You agree to use this microsite only for lawful purposes, and in a manner which does not infringe the rights, or restrict, or inhibit the use and enjoyment of the site by any third party.

14. This microsite and the information, names, images, pictures, logos regarding or relating to CAFOD and/or SCIAF are provided "as is" without any representation or endorsement made and without warranty of any kind whether express or implied. In no event will CAFOD be liable for any damages including, without limitation, indirect or consequential damages, or any damages whatsoever arising from the use or in connection with such use or loss of use of the site, whether in contract or in negligence.

15. We will try to ensure that this microsite, hosted by JustGiving, is up-to-date and functioning well. However, we do not warrant that the functions and the material contained in this site will be uninterrupted or error free, that defects will be corrected, or that this site or the server that makes it available are free of viruses or bugs or represents the full functionality, accuracy and reliability of the materials.

16. CAFOD and SCIAF reserve the right to change these Terms and Conditions at any time by posting changes online. Your continued use of this site after changes are posted constitutes your acceptance of this agreement as modified.

17. If these Terms and Conditions are not accepted in full, the use of this site and your participation in this challenge must be terminated immediately.