Charlie's Postcard from Home

Over Easter, whilst watching news of the virus unfold, I admired the efforts of the many fund raising events that had been taking place around the country for the NHS, and I thought about what I could do to help. Around this time my family started planning a marathon relay across four other families for the 2.6 Challenge on the same day that the London Marathon would have taken place. I hadn’t realised how much the other charities would be losing out, and how many of their fundraising events must have been cancelled, and I decided that by doing my own challenge we could raise even more.

After a quick test run, I realised that running 26km, despite being hard, would be achievable. We decided to raise money for CLIC Sargent, a charity that provides vital support for young people with cancer as their donations were down 60% this year. The charity has had a major impact on our family as they helped my cousin Leo when he had cancer, aged three. CLIC Sargent have continued to play a huge part in his recovery.

I started to prepare with some training in my garden and the nearby woods, however, there was the issue of not having any shoes, as I realised that my trainers were too small! Amazon solved that problem, and by the following Sunday I was ready. I completed the challenge successfully, managing to smash my fundraising goal; I’m so grateful to everyone who donated and helped to support the charity.

Things have certainly been different since the pandemic. With school online and being stuck in the same place I, like everyone else, can’t wait to get out of lockdown.