Maxence Renaud, a broker with Groupe Sutton – Centre Ouest in Montreal is raising money for the UN Refugee Agency Canada (UNHCR) by doing 137 burpees every day for a year. A burpee is a full-body strength exercise consisting of a squat, followed by a plank, another squat and a stand. Renaud has made his challenge even more difficult by pledging to do the burpees outdoors.
“The burpee is probably the most dreaded exercise in the fitness community,” says Renaud on his fundraising page. “They test your cardio, strength and endurance while at the same time challenging your mind. Doing them outdoors will be more challenging, both physically and mentally but will be a reminder that this daily self-imposed discomfort is nothing compared to the living conditions of refugees worldwide.”
Renaud says he started his fundraising on August 28. “My goal is to reach 50,000 burpees by my 50th birthday on August 27, 2022. My Instagram handle is @50kforfifty where I am posting my daily session live as social proof as well as to keep me accountable.”
A story on the UNHCR website by Susan Pedwell says Renaud was inspired to help the cause after he saw a single photograph. “A picture online of an immigrant woman with her three kids caught my eye,” he told Pedwell. “The picture was striking, and I stepped into the woman’s shoes for a moment. Then I thought of my wife and our three sons.”
He learned that by the end of 2020 there were more than 82 million people around the world who have been forced to flee their homes. Some ran for their lives when insurgents broke through their front door. Others left their homeland because they were being persecuted for their religious beliefs, says the UNHCR article. Renaud decided to raise funds for the life-saving medical supplies, food and shelter that refugees and internally displaced people in need in countries such as Afghanistan, Venezuela and Syria.
“We don’t really realize the situation in which all these people are, who are displaced either because of political problems, sometimes economic problems, sometimes because of the climate.”
He says he wants to make a difference for these families to make their situation less precarious.
