This is the pair’s second walking challenge for the local fund.
A husband and wife from Lichfield are preparing to hike the Yorkshire Three Peaks, to boost the community fund We Love Lichfield and raise awareness of hearing loss.
Laura Evans, principal audiologist at Cathedral Hearing, and her husband Richard will be scaling The Yorkshire Three Peaks on Saturday 4 July – a 24 mile route up and down Pen-y-Ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough, in under 12 hours. While on the walk, Laura and Rich will be creating a sound map of the area – rather than an ‘Ordnance Survey Map’, theirs will be an ‘Outside Sounds Map’.
On the walk, they will record various sounds and afterwards create a visual and audio ‘map’ showing different noises, including wildlife, other walkers and the elements – especially when they climb the peaks.
Laura said she is hoping to “explain how even simple activities like going for a walk can be experienced differently by people with hearing loss”.
Imagine walking through beautiful countryside and finding it harder to follow conversations with other walkers or missing some of the sounds around you, such as birdsong and wildlife.
This will be the second walking challenge for Laura and Richard Evans in aid of We Love Lichfield, having scaled Snowdon in 2025. They are looking for donations, having already raised over £1,000 since they started supporting the place-based community fund in 2024.
Laura described supporting the community as “important to me”.
I have seen first-hand the difference We Love Lichfield makes to the people of Lichfield and the surrounding villages and want to continue supporting this amazing cause.
We really enjoyed our Snowdon hike last year and wanted our next challenge. But this time I wanted the walk to help me reflect on the experiences of my patients. Creating our sound map will help to build awareness and empathy for people with hearing loss and encourage those impacted to seek support.
Donations can be made here.
We Love Lichfield is one of the Staffordshire and Shropshire Community Foundation’s place-based funds. It provides grants to a wide range of projects operating across the district of Lichfield. The fund considers applications from local groups in need twice a year. It raises money and then the returns are given away. Companies and individuals make up the bulk of the donors to the fund, either through direct donations or through fundraising.
All the money raised is invested through an endowment fund in line with charity commission guidelines. The financial return from the fund is then distributed as small grants across the area. The beauty of this model is that it will provide a source of sustainable funding that can be used for grants long into the future. It’s almost like a pension scheme set up to support community and voluntary groups across Lichfield. Individuals and businesses can raise money for We Love Lichfield here.
For more about We Love Lichfield, visit www.welovelichfield.co.uk. For more information about Cathedral Hearing, visit www.cathedralhearing.co.uk or call 01543 319 641.