Fynnlay and Cassius Loupis are 11 year old twin brothers from Church Lawton, Cheshire, who compete regularly in Freestyle Skiing and are both at entry level for team GB. The Loupis brothers have recently attended their first international competition in Switzerland where between them, they took home 2 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze medals thanks to the funding granted to them by the Everybody Foundation.
Fynnlay and Cassius began skiing at 8 years of age after trying Football, Swimming and even Beavers, none of which ever had them as excited as Skiing now does. After just two months of training, the boys started freestyle Skiing and have been hooked ever since. Now only 3 years later, Fynnlay and Cassius are the youngest members of the Home Nations Academy and compete all over the world.
Back in December, the boys became Sports Personality Of The Year finalists at Everybody Sport and Recreation’s Junior Awards and thereafter, became members of the Everybody Talented Athlete Support Scheme, whereby they are offered the use of facilities and workshops to aid with their training. The Loupis family then heard about the Everybody Foundation, a charity that raises funds to support individuals and groups to promote a healthy and active lifestyle and applied for Fynnlay and Cassius to receive a grant to fund an upcoming competition in Switzerland.
The boys explained: “Without having the money from the Everybody Foundation, if we would have been able to go to Switzerland at all, we definitely wouldn’t have been able to have the coaching we had out there. We have never been able to Ski for two whole weeks before, it was amazing! The money paid for us to have two weeks of daily coaching and without that, we couldn’t have placed where we did.”
The Everybody Foundation has three aims in order to benefit the public within the communities in which Everybody Sport and Recreation operates; to promote a healthy and active lifestyle, to assist individuals to achieve their potential and to improve facilities used by local people to fulfil an active lifestyle within.
Organisations can be funded to deliver projects that encourage people to be active and healthy, individuals can be supported to be active, regardless of whether that is trying to win an Olympic gold medal, develop the skills to help others to be active or to access their session of choice more regularly, and funding can be used to pay for facility developments and the purchase of non-sporting equipment that helps the local community to be more active.
To find out more about the Everybody Foundation or to apply to receive a grant, please visit https://everybody.org.uk/everybodyfoundation/, email [email protected], write to Everybody Foundation, , Station Road, Holmes Chapel, CW4 8AA or speak to a member of staff at your local Everybody centre.