Free time? Active? Why not earn some serious £££s for charity doing something you love?

Three months ago, I signed up to a London to Paris cycle ride for charity, hoping to raise £750 by cycling 203 miles from one capital city to another. To say the challenge was daunting is an understatement - finding this amount of money in less than 100 days was never going to be easy, nor was the ample days of training I endured leading up to the event. But did I regret it one bit? Definitely not - and this is precisely why I'm urging more of us to do the same exact thing.

It doesn't have to be cycling - this is just something I love to do. You can do so many things to raise a bit of cash for charity (mine being Hope for Children), from adventure trips to educational visits to faraway places. Not only this, but you actually get a free holiday too!

To say I found it difficult raising funds is completely fair, and it's true to say that until a couple of weeks before the cycle I was well under my target. However, constant nudges to friends via social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, personal text messages, phone calls and emails to closer friends and companies, and a few fundraising events later, and you'll soon find your target is getting more and more realistic by the day.

Coming from someone that rarely donates to charity, raising a total of £800 so far for my chosen charity means incredible amounts to me. During my cycling event, it made me feel alive. Even now, days after my return, I still feel extremely proud about what I've done, and am contemplating doing the same thing again next year.

What's more, there are companies out there that actually offer such events for bargain sign-up fees that it will hardly feel like you've had any money taken out of your bank accounts - perfect for us students - and means more importantly that everything we raise is pure profit for the charity of your choice.

So if you're thinking of taking a gap year this year, have a few months free over the summer to start training for something you already love to do, or even feel like taking on a charity challenge during your university year, why not make that something you love that little bit more special...