“It's just trying to find that light, that little bit of good that can come out and make the tragedy mean something and be worth something. That's, what fundraising is to me.”
“My Aunt passed away from meningitis in 1998, before I was born. She was 18/19.
“My granddad who's always been big into his cycling decided to raise money for a meningitis charity in her memory by cycling from Lands End to John O’Groats.
“It's been 25 years since he completed that fundraising effort in 1999 and almost been 10 years since he passed away. I thought this year was the perfect time for me to do the same challenge.
Fundraising
“I came across Meningitis Now at the end of last year, because I was thinking in my head I wanted to do this and I was doing all the prep work when I came across an ad on Instagram for Meningitis Now.
“I saw the ad and I had heard of Meningitis Now before so I looked into it to see what the charity was doing. I saw they were doing lots of good work for people impacted by meningitis and I thought, ‘right, I'm fundraising for those guys.”
“I'm also fundraising for my local children's hospital because six years ago a friend of mine passed away from cancer, and so I’m fundraising for them too.
Not done anything like it before
“I'm nervous. I've not done anything like it before. I’ve previously done the Iron Man but with that event you just turn up on the day and you do it. It's one day and then you can pass out for a week and chill out.
“But this is going to be nine days of cycling over hundreds of miles, so that's definitely going to be a challenge, more mentally at points than physically. Knowing in the back of your mind you’ve got so many miles to do is going to be tough.
“Fitness wise, I think I'll be okay, it's just that mental hurdle of it being rainy or windy or uphill. But because you are doing it for a reason, you've just got to keep pushing on.
“It's an organised, organized event, so they'll be a big, big group of people and about half doing it for charity so a lot of people in a similar boat.
Keeping their memory alive
“What I’ve found with Fundraising is every time you think I'm going to do this charity event and I’m going to try and raise money. You think about these people that you've known in your life, and it's a way of following them and keeping their memory alive and getting something good out of one of the worst things that can happen.
“It's just trying to find that light, that little bit of good that can come out and make the tragedy mean something and be worth something. That's, what fundraising is to me.”
