Hey everyone,

Welcome on my page. I would like to tell you something about myself, my charitywork, Keep a Child Alive and the Brighton marathon I will be competing in, april 18th 2010.

 

About me.

I was born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. I grew up in a small town called Vijfhuizen. I have two brothers and a sister.  I am crazy about sports. I played just about every sport there was growing up! I especially loved playing tennis and basketball. My dream was to become a pro a tennis or basketball or, at the very least, become a sportsinstructor/teacher. Unfortunatelly one day I had excruciating back pains. The doctor found out I had spondylolyse. This is a condition some people are born with. They told me I would have to stop playing sports or risk ending up in a wheelchair!

Well, I never did quite playing sports. My philosophy is that I could end up in a wheelchair even if I never played sports again. If it's meant to be it will be, right? So why not enjoy life, instead of living in fear that something might happen down the road? I don't want to life like that.

I did found out I had a lot of other interests besides sport like travel, art, marketing & philosophy. I studied marketing management and started working in sales. Currently I live alone in the center of Amsterdam and work as a business development manager for Frontline Business, a knowledge platform of Microsoft and HP.

Charitywork.

In 2008 I came across an organisation called Be More. be More is a Dutch/ British charity that offers volunteering opportunities at schools, orphanages, hospices and street child organizations abroad. It struck me as a great opportunity to give more value to life by giving more to others. I signed up and in june 2008 I worked at an orphanage called Agape in Waterfall, South Africa. Most of the childeren lost one or both parents to AIDS. There where about 50 kids living at the orphanage. The kids varied in age from babies to teenagers. While I was there I could see firsthand that the need for help was enormous. We visited other projects as well and we could what AIDS was doing to the society. 

What made a lasting impression on me was the spirit and courage the kids have. They are all joyfull. I look up to them because even though most kids lost both parents to AIDS, they won't give up. They move forward. I'm proud to be associated with them and it keeps me motivated, knowing that there is so much we can do for them!

I also met some really driven and cool people who volunteered with me. Louise was also working at Agape when we met. We kept in touch(thank you, Facebook) so when I heard she started working for KCA I was really excited and hoped we could work together again. At the end of november she approached me about possibly running the Brighton Marathon for KCA. Although I had never run beyond ten kilometers I said yes....So now what?!

The Brighton Marathon.

All I can say is that this might be the biggest physical challenge of my life! As you read above I have four months to prepare, which isn't a lot of time to prepare for a marathon. Usually people train for eight months or so. I'm willing to give it my best for KCA and the kids and people who's lives we will hopefully change. Maybe the odds are against me. But that's exactly why I want your support. Because the odds are against the survival of many kids in Africa and Asia as well. And what are we going to do about it?

So, I hope you will support me and Keep a Child Alive. My goal is to raise € 1000,-. I'm looking for corporate sponsors as well as personal donations. I will use my own birthday to ask for money instead of presents. Together with you I know we will make it and exceed our expectations!

Check out the course here: http://brightonmarathon.co.uk/course.html

More on KCA: http://keepachildalive.org/

One Love,

Jeremy

 

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