Last year, our friend Milly and her lovely husband Toby sadly died in an accident on holiday. Both teachers in South London, they dedicated their lives to helping those in their community and we wanted to get together to continue this in their memory.

Most of us have known Milly since our early years at Graveney Secondary School. From the days of cross country around Tooting Common to long runs along the Thames near her home in Oval, running has always been a part of Milly’s life so it seemed fitting to raise money by getting our running shoes on and challenging ourselves at the Victoria Park Half/10k Race on the 15th March. Some of us have run before, some of us haven’t, all of us are going to run to raise money for Milly and Toby.

The money donated will go towards continuing Milly and Toby’s support of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Half of the money will be going to a London based charity called Urban Synergy, an award winning early intervention mentoring charity that helps hundreds of young people between 11-18 years of age reach their full potential through outcome focused mentoring programmes, inspirational seminars, and work experience.

Further afield, Milly was actually born in Uganda and her old Church is in the process of building a hall to expand their work with children. It's going to be named after Milly in her Ugandan name - Namuddu's Hall - and we’ll be donating half the money to support it’s construction.

Losing Milly and Toby has been awful, it‘s been a tragic loss of two young people who dedicated their time to helping others. While it's hard to think their lives were cut short, hopefully this money can help others, who may not of otherwise had the chance, realise their full potential.