The 100 beaches challenge by the Archbishop of Sydney's Anglican Aid gathered momentum as it entered its second week.

A team of board and body surfers, lead by Anglican Aid's David Mansfield, accepted the challenge of surfing 100 beaches in Sydney Diocese in 10 days.

At the end of week one they had reached the the Illawarra beaches, after starting at Ulladulla.

The team meets local Christians for prayer on the beach before diving in and doing their sponsored swims.

17 year old Port Macquarie student Ben Collins (pictured) packed his body board and joined the team in an effort to raise $1 million to turn the tide on world poverty.

“Ben and our team of board and body surfers are making the exhausting but none-the-less pleasant 10 day expedition in order to raise $1 million to help just some of the 1.3 billion people in the world who live on around $1.00 a day,” David Mansfield said.

“I am excited to be able to help people around the world who are worse off than me and the bonus is I get to surf all day every day for 10 days,” Ben said.

Mr Mansfield says the donations are building but they won’t have a tally until they return to Sydney.

“Already we have received a donation of 10 cents a beach ($10) and $100 a beach ($10,000) for which we are very grateful" he said. 

During the 100 Beaches Challenge people are encouraged to donate to any Anglican Aid project projects but the focus is on the Gambella WASH Project in Ethiopia, where 30,000 mothers are being trained in better practices of water and sanitation hygiene. This protects their children from deadly water borne infection and disease.

“The children of Gambella are dying in large numbers but our 100 Beaches Challenge will go a long way in saving lives" he said.

“To achieve our $1 m goal we just need 10,000 people to donate $1 per beach."

There'll be a full report in the April edition of Southern Cross newspaper, available at any Anglican Church.

Read David's latest blog here.