Hannah Cockroft teams up with children’s author to raise money for Chester Zoo

Hannah Cockroft MBE has joined forces with a childrens author to raise funds for UK zoos, including Chester Zoo.

Halifax Paralympian Hannah, now living in Chester, has partnered with Josie Dom, author of popular children’s picture books Lum and Lum’s Mum.

Hannah’s partner and fellow para-athlete, Nathan Maguire, is also a part of the project.

Josie’s latest project is a poem telling the story of what happens when the Olympics is cancelled and the animal kingdom step up to compete instead of humans.

“As soon as I heard about Josie’s Animalympics poem fundraiser, I just knew I wanted to be involved," said Hannah.

" As I live in Chester, I’ve seen throughout lockdown the effects that current situations have had on one of the city’s most popular attractions so I knew I had to help in any way that I could.

“Growing up, I loved visiting zoos up and down the country with my parents and I would hate to see young people missing out on those experiences and memories because of the year that 2020 has turned out to be. In her poem, Josie has linked the Olympic and Paralympic Games together with the zoo in such a clever way.”

The poem, which was inspired during lockdown when Josie’s daughter claimed sloths were good swimmers, soon got the creative juices flowing. “I soon got plotting with my family which animals would be great at the particular Olympic sports,” said Josie.

“The result: an epic poem with buffalo playing football, orangutans playing tennis and Woodpecker Will organising the whole thing.”

Fronting the initiative with Dom, Cockroft and Maguire are ex-Olympians from Team GB, including David Hemery CBE (Olympics Gold 1968), Wendy Smith (Paralympics 2004), Jo Mersh (Olympics 2004), Katherine Grainger DBE (Olympics 2012) and Marcus Mepstead (Olympics 2016). A Very Special Guest from the world of television is also a part of the project – but no name has been announced yet.

The fundraising campaign sees athletes reading their sport’s verse from Josie’s Animalympics poem, in exchange for a donation to Josie’s GoFundMe campaign, donors will receive via email a daily video covering the Animalympics in place of the expected Olympics coverage.

Donors have the opportunity to nominate their favourite zoo and all money raised will go to the zoos themselves to use to meet their daily operating costs.