Girl Juggles Soccer Ball More Than 1 Million Times to Honor Essential Workers, Raise Money for Charity

An 11-year-old girl raised money for charity by completing her challenge of one keepy-uppy for every UK essential worker - a staggering 7.1 million total.

In April 2020, Capt Tom Moore, a 99-year-old war veteran, raised £15m for NHS staff after reaching his goal of walking 100 laps around his garden before his 100th birthday. That feat inspired an 11-year-old girl from the UK to aim for a goal for herself and raise money to help her chosen charities.

Imogen Papworth-Heidel, a football fan and a football player herself, decided to do one keepy-uppy for every UK key worker who is "trying to keep us safe while risking their lives and helping us to stay at home." Keepy-uppy is a British term that refers to the skill of ball-juggling.

7.1 million Keepy-uppies for 7.1 million key workers 

"I was so inspired to see Captain Tom raising money for the NHS that I wanted to help too," she wrote on her fundraiser page. She said that according to her parents, Sarah, 37, and Karl, 50, there are 7.1 million key workers in the UK and so that became her goal for her fundraising effort. Both Sarah and Karl work for the NHS in patient safety.

The Cambridgeshire schoolgirl who took up football when she was just six, started reaching her goal by doing 200 keepy-uppies per day. But they realized that it would take Papworth-Heide about 97 years to complete 7.1 million. So she asked help from others by donating videos or photos of their keepy-uppies as well.

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Thousands responded to the challenge

People from all over the world responded to her challenge which included a cancer patient doing keepy-uppy using a balloon, The Guardian noted. Karl and Sarah who were keeping track of the tally said that they were able to receive up to 50 videos per day. That meant some nights they would sit and count up until about midnight so that they could get the latest figures.

At the end of the 195-day run, Papworth-Heidel made a total of 1,123,586 keepy-uppies, peaking at more than 7,000 a day during the pandemic lockdown and summer holidays. The remaining 5,976,414 keepy-uppies were donated by around 2,000 people including videos donated by England and Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford.

The "7.1 million Keepie Uppie Challenge for Covid Heroes" raised a total of £14,177, double the £7,100 target. The nine charities she raised money for include NHS, Mind, The Fire Fighters Charity, Police Care UK, The Care Workers Charity, SSAFA - The Armed Forces Charity, Education Support, East Anglian Air Ambulance, and Addenbrooke's Charitable Trust.

Papworth-Heidel said that she is  just absolutely speechless at how much money they were able to raise and "how many keepy-uppies have been donated and how many kind messages of support have come in."

She recently met Capt Tom Moore who he told her the challenge "was quite cool and that's quite a cool thing", she told BBC.

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