Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. I'm raising money for St Ann's Hospice and the Jamie Horrocks Trust.

Starting June 15^th, I’m attempting to ride my bicycle 2000 miles in 14 days from Lisbon to Manchester (150 miles a day). I’ll be riding south through Portugal, moving into southern Spain, before heading north through Spain, along the west coast of France, and then up through the UK back to Manchester. As well as covering all of those miles, I’ll ride up hills equivalent to riding up Everest nearly 3 times – almost 80,000 feet of climbing.

My Mum passed away in 2017, receiving support from St Ann’s Hospice through their Hospice at Home service. She was taken before the need for this service became intense, but it helped, and we were extremely grateful as a family for the service and the knowledge that help was at hand. SAH also offered counselling services and I was really fortunate to get supported through the next 6 months, the darkest time I’ve been through, by a wonderful lady: Hazel Wilcock. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that Hazel changed my life. Whilst supporting me through grief and depression, Hazel helped me in many ways and her help was fundamental in me being able to make certain changes in my life: I’m halfway through a degree at university and I am certain that would not have happened without Hazel. After trying to contact Hazel in 2021, I was devastated to learn that she had passed away earlier that year in a horrific gas explosion at her home in Bury. This pushed me to want to do something special in tribute. As one of the largest hospices outside of London, supporting people across Greater Manchester, St Ann’s needs to raise £20,000 a day to cover the running costs across its three sites and their work supporting people out in the community too.

I’ve also wanted to do something in memory of my friend Jamie for some time and to support the great work I see the Jamie Horrocks Trust do in the community. Jamie tragically took his own life in 2013 and the trust was established to try and improve mental health networks.  I think it ties in really well with the help I received from SAH, where, from what I see, JHT want to normalise conversations around mental health and create environments that allow such conversations, whilst creating structures that help battle mental health, and help people identify risks. I was lucky in that I’m a talker who is very open, who happened to have access to a counsellor at a key time. More people should have support when they need it and in whatever form that may take.

I hope this ride can be a fitting tribute to my Mum, Hazel, and Jamie; and money can be raised to support these two great charities and they work they do.

The money raised is to be split 50/50 between the two charities. The estimated costs of the ride are circa £1400; I've already received pledges from businesses and some generous individuals for almost half of that amount and I continue to seek more support with costs, but in the event that there is as shortfall some of the first £1000 raised is reserved to cover any costs. Likewise, any surplus on money pledged for costs will be donated to the charities.

UPDATE 16/05. Pledges have been secured for all of the £1400 costs so every donation is going to the charities. 

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