RAISING MONEY for disadvantaged children, a local woman is running 2,020km this year for the charity she founded.
Emma Cantrell, CEO of First Days Children’s Charity — who support children living in poverty — will be running throughout the year in a bid to raise £20,000.
She hopes to reach £5,000 through her JustGiving page, and make up the rest from other fundraising initiatives.
The charity hopes to raise enough money to move to a larger premises and scale-up their operations.
Currently, they help approximately 2,500 local children living in poverty each year, but Ms Cantrell believes they can do more.
“We’re in a position now where we need to expand,” she explained. “Over the last six months, our referrals have gone up by 65%.
“In Berkshire, there are 45,000 children living below the poverty line.
“This is appalling data and just shouldn’t be happening.
Currently, there is a demand for our service that we just can’t fulfil and we want to change that.
“We’re having to turn families away. In the near future, we want to be supporting 10,000 of these children living in poverty.
“Due to the nature of what we do, we need to move premises now and it needs to be a much larger place to store donations.”
To raise funds, Ms Cantrell is running 2020km throughout the year, finishing with the Dinton Pastures Santa Dash in December.
She will be completing 20 races as part of the distance, including the London Marathon.
The rest of the distance will be made-up in her training.
First Days are also running a virtual race, where adults and children can sign-up.
Adults will run a 20km distance for the cost of £20.20 each, and children can run a 2km distance for £8 each.
Those who complete the running challenge will receive a medal, with proceeds going to the £20,000 target.
The charity is also looking for support and sponsorship from local businesses to help reach the target.
To donate or offer support, log on to Emma’s fundraising page, www.justgiving.com/fundraising/fdrun2020
