Pro Bono: Lawrence Graham duo tackles Mount Kilimanjaro for charity

Lawrence Graham duo tackles Mount Kilimanjaro for charity" />Lawrence Graham real estate partners spend the majority of their time sealing high-profile property deals, but give them some spare time and there's no telling what they will get up to.

Jon Lloyd and Rabinder Chagger from the real estate group recently took a week off work to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, raising more than £35,000 for the Hope and Homes for Children charity.

As part of their seven-day challenge, the pair successfully climbed to the Uhuru Peak, the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, at 5,896m above sea level.

Lloyd says that even though he's not the athletic type, he had always wanted to do the climb.

"It was exhausting, especially with the altitude sickness, but it's been a long-standing ambition of mine to do this," he says. "Even more satisfying was the incredible response we had to our fundraising efforts. I'm still waiting to hear back from the charity, but we know we raised in excess of £35,000.

"There was a lot of joking in the office that we wouldn't make it up the mountain but we're glad we did."

Lloyd and Chagger joined a group of 35 to do the climb, with just over half making it to the summit.

Lloyd says he booked the climb separately to his colleague and did not discover Chagger would be doing the climb as well until much later.

"We had 35 people in our group, but we were accompanied by 117 staff, including porters and cooks," Lloyd says. "There were four people who didn't make it to the first major stop and some others who were too sick to get to the summit.

"It's not so much a climb as it is a trek, but after seven days of walking and sleeping in tents I was very weary. Walking to the summit wasn't as steep as you might imagine I don't think Rabinder felt nearly as bad as me. I think he was in better shape than me."

Lawrence Graham has supported Hope and Homes for Children since 2005. The charity is focused on giving the most vulnerable children in the world families and brighter futures.

It has been building a family home for a children's institution in Romania with the £70,000-plus raised by Lawrence Graham. Representatives from the firm will visit Romania in the summer to mark the home's completion.