Damian Allen

Damian's Virgin London Marathon 2014 page

Fundraising for The Children's Society
£4,882
raised of £10,000 target
Donations cannot currently be made to this page
Event: Virgin London Marathon 2014, on 13 April 2014
We fight for the hope of young people to create a society built for all children

Story

I am running the Virgin Money London Marathon 2014 for The Children’s Society because the work they do changes the lives of children and young people every day as they fight childhood poverty and adolescent neglect.

As the Director of Children and Families at the charity, I feel a strong connection to our work and especially the work focussed on childhood poverty. Despite living in a country which is the sixth richest on the planet, we are seeing levels of child poverty that are unprecedented in my lifetime. This is an intolerable position and one which the Government could do more to alleviate, if it saw it as a greater priority. It was Nelson Mandela who said; “You can judge a society’s soul by the way it treats it children”. On this measure, the great man would see Britain today as pretty ‘soulless!’

That is why I am not only taking on the challenge of running 26.2 miles but doing so in ‘Huaraches Barefoot Running Sandals’, inspired by those worn by the Tarahumara Indians of North West Mexico. If even for just 5 hours, I will be able to visually protest against the plight of young people whose suffering goes unseen. To finish off the race I will cast off the 'barefoot' sandals and run truly barefoot for my last mile!

This is my 1st marathon and after taking on the 3 peaks in both winter and summer this is going to be my hardest challenge yet and keeping in line with that, I have set myself my highest fundraising target yet - £10,000.

Please sponsor whatever you can to help me reach my goal. The old adage of ‘every little helps’ has never been more apt. Thank you so much.

Damian

Share this story

Help Damian Allen

Sharing this page with your friends could help raise up to 3x more in donations

You can also help by sharing this link on

About the charity

We are a national charity working to transform the hopes and happiness of young people facing abuse, exploitation and neglect. We support them through their most serious life challenges and we campaign tirelessly for the big social changes that will improve the lives of those who need hope most.

Donation summary

Total raised
£4,881.31
+ £641.87 Gift Aid
Online donations
£3,756.31
Offline donations
£1,125.00

* Charities pay a small fee for our service. Find out how much it is and what we do for it.