Hospice workers attempting to raise over £20,000 through running Reverse London Marathon
The Palliative Pacers is a team of volunteers and staff at the Woking and Sam Beare hospice
A team of staff and volunteers from the Woking and Sam Beare hospice are looking to raise over £20,000 by doing the reverse London Marathon.
The Palliative Pacers was founded last year and have been taking on various challenges to raise money for the hospice.
Tammy Stracey is the Deputy CEO of the hospice as well as a member of the group
"It originally started in the beginning of 2024, where we set out to do a challenge in September, which was the Thames Path Challenge 100k, which is 100k of continuous walking from Fulham in London to Henley on Thames."
Before that however, the group climbed Mount Snowden. Between the two events, the group raised over £20,000 for the hospice.
They are now using this sum as their fundraising target for when they take on the Reverse London Marathon
The reverse London marathon takes place just before the regular marathon and sees people run the standard route from the finish to the start.
It begins at midnight the night before with the aim of having everyone finished before the main race itself kicks off
Tammy told us how vital the fundraising is for the hospice
"The Hospice receives about 30% of its funding towards clinical services through NHS statutory funding, for which we are incredibly grateful.
For the rest of that, the funding, we need to raise that through both our retail and our charitable fundraising exercises. This is something that you know is a huge factor in continuing to have our services run. So £20,000 is a considerable amount to keep those things running.
Tammy added that there is other value to the Palliative pacers, and she hopes it can continue to grow
"Part of the palliative paces is also about staff health and well-being. And now that it's grown to volunteers and also supporters, it allows us to have that interaction with people who we may have seen in in different areas in the Hospice.
But outside of work and doing something really healthy and good for your mental health and it's just really lovely to get outside with a bunch of people that we work with or have been caring for their loved ones and just spend some time doing something out in the fresh air.
Also just to keep getting out information about what the Hospice is and what the Hospice does and how we can support our community
I think it's just so lovely and it just shows the commitment of our staff and volunteers to go even further above and beyond their day job to continue."