Team Elsie was set up to support 4 year old, Elsie Katie Novell, who has a degenerative, neuromuscular condition called Spinal Muscular Atrophy (aka SMA.) She cannot stand or walk and the prognosis is that she never will. To sit up without support, eat and fight of a basic cold are all hugely demanding tasks for Elsie: however-she never lets that stop her trying.

Over the last 3 years, we have raised an incredible amount of money to make Elsie’s life a little bit easier but these things cost an incredible amount of money and in another 2 years, she will require another wheelchair (her last one cost over £23,000!) As a group, Team Elsie are constantly thinking of new ways to fund raise all of the time and whilst running a 5 or 10k race doesn’t seem a particularly inventive one, the challenge is that the majority of us are not runners! In fact, some of us haven’t run in over a decade and some have never run at all!

This all came about as Charlotte’s brother in law (Ollie Novell) continually pestered her to enter a 5k saying that people would sponsor her because she didn’t run. This then became a mass sign up of other non-runners accepting the challenge, with the same goal in mind, to raise more money for Elsie.

The idea behind it, is that given the chance, Elsie would like nothing more than to run. However, if she can’t, but doesn’t let that stop her or her fighting spirit, then the rest of us should be able to pant our way to the finish line.

There are in excess of 10 runners now (Including Elsie’s Uncles, Auntie, Gramps and Mummy) We hope you can spare a small donation to help us reach our goal or can share the page for us.

Look for all the purple vests on Sunday 16th September and remember the little warrior spurring us all onto the finish line. Thank you x