We hope that this post finds you well. Our prayers are with all those who have been affected by the virus and our gratefulness to all those who are on the front line.

This time last year I took part in the London Marathon and a huge amount of you kindly sponsored me to raise the fantastic amount of £22,000 for Happy Hill (a small special-needs respite centre near where we live) to raise money to help them buy a new minibus to take the children out on trips. Although I really hope I got round to thanking each one of you in som way last year I never actually told you that in November last year the target of £35,000 was reached for the minibus as you can see from the photo.

So I thought this was a great opportunity to let you all know where your money went. The children have had huge amounts of fun going on fantastic trips swimming, to farms, bowling and soft play. The list is endless and none of these things could have happened without all your amazing donations.

Sadly due to the coronavirus the amazing respite centre has had to close down for the time being to enable everyone to social distance. We as a family are missing it so much the last five weeks have been very long and trying without any respite or school at all and although I know lockdown is incredibly hard for a lot of people, for families with special needs children it is particularly hard.

So tomorrow I should have been running in the 40th London marathon instead we are taking part in the 2.6 challenge to save some much-needed funds for Happy Hill to get it up and running again once the government allow, to give the families like us a little bit of time off from the very trying job of parenting a special needs child.

So we as a family will be setting off tomorrow on a little adventure to carry our 11-year-old son for 2.6 miles we will take it in turns to carry him over the 2.6 miles and would love it if anyone would love to sponsor us to raise some money for a very small charity who have helped and made a huge difference and will still continue to help so many families get some respite.

I wasn’t intending to fundraise this year but due to the circumstances and this 2.6 challenge to help charities, I thought it was a great opportunity to see if we could raise a bit more money for a small charity. I know it is a tough time for so many families at this time so don’t feel obliged to sponsor in anyway but we would love to do our part in helping a small but very helpful charity to keep helping so many very grateful families to give these kids such a fun time and let these parents sit down and have a relaxing cup of tea!

Lots of love

The McIlvennas