The Mary O'Dell Foundation - 26 miles on the 26th August

Three of Mary's nieces, Christina, Stephanie, Bernadette and their mum Sue will officially begin their training walks in preparation for walking a marathon on Monday 26th August to raise funds for The Mary O'Dell Foundation!! ⭐️

The Mary O'Dell Foundation was launched in 2021 after Mary O'Dell sadly passed after a 14 year battle with Cancer. Mary always dreamt that in her retirement she would travel to Africa and help those less fortunate, yet because of the disease sadly didn't manage to live this dream. Therefore the Foundation was launched to help those that desperately need help and The Gambia was the chosen Country. Since setting up the Foundation, through fundraising, we have managed to supply 315 families in the village of Keneba with rice through covid times, ship boxes of clothes to families and amazingly install safe water systems at both the lower basic and upper schools in the village of Keneba. We have so many more projects that we would like to undertake in the Country and therefore fundraising is vital.

Bernadette says:-

We've called it 26 on the 26th in memory of our incredible Auntie Mair.

In June of 2015 I completed the Edinburgh Moonwalk, walking a difficult 26 miles through the night wearing only a bra and leggings (in freezing conditions) raising hundreds of pounds for Breast Cancer charities.

The great thing about it was it directly benefited some services for women in Mair's local area. I remember Auntie Mair was so proud and grateful that we'd been able to raise awareness and she talked to me about friends she'd met during her cancer treatment in hospital who'd been able to avoid losing their hair due to special caps which had been bought using money from the Moonwalk funds.

I'll never forget the hug, love and warm bed Mair gave me after the Moonwalk that night.

My Mum, sisters and I wanted to set ourselves a challenge this year to raise much needed funds for the Mary O'Dell Foundation, and so we've decided on walking a Marathon together along the Norfolk coast.

We can't wait to begin training but we'd be so incredibly grateful for any donations, as we do need motivation to walk so far and to fit the training in before the big day! We would be grateful for any donations .