Welcome to my fundraising page on behalf of CoppaFeel!

At the end of May I’m taking on the London 2 Brighton Ultra Challenge walk. I'm going to be walking 100km (62 miles) through the open country of Surrey and Sussex all the way down to the south coast. I’m rather excited about the challenge and looking forward to the experience ahead of me: getting to the start at Richmond-on-Thames on the 28th and reaching Brighton Racecourse a day later (I hope). It's a lot longer than what I've walked before in one go, but the struggle will be more than worthwhile, as I’m going to be doing the walk in memory of my wonderful sister Sarah and raising sponsorship funds to support CoppaFeel.

Sarah was a joyful girl, greatly loved by her family and friends for her liveliness and caring nature. She was enjoying life, finding her vocation in a career in nursing and settling in Leicester, when in 2016 a serious breast cancer diagnosis brought the day-to-day existence she’d known to a terrible stop. After enduring a traumatic year of surgery and chemotherapy, Sarah eventually got the all clear and slowly got back to where she had been. Tragically, a secondary cancer was found in early 2019 and we lost Sarah a year later (just prior to the Covid lockdown - she was only 33).

In her last year Sarah became a supporter of CoppaFeel, a charity focused on cancer awareness. CoppaFeel's mission is to educate young people of the importance of regularly checking their boobs, pecs and chests for signs of concern. The aim is to get them to develop the habit of being aware of their bodies and to give them the knowledge and confidence to visit their GP early enough if something doesn’t seem right – feeling empowered and comfortable doing this could save your life! 

CoppaFeel spread their message to young people through visits to schools, universities, workplaces and festivals: to this end, Sarah signed up as a CoppaFeel ‘Boobette’ and paid a visit to a school in Kent (see the header image top left) to give a talk to a group of students about the charity and the importance of being aware of the signs and danger of cancers (at all ages).

What deeply impressed me about Sarah’s last year was the way she kept on trying to live life with a terminal illness the best way she could, all the way to the end. She carried on travelling widely and got married to Andy, her long term partner, on an incredibly happy day for them both. Her volunteering for CoppaFeel came from a personal determination: her illness was terribly unfair, but she wanted to try and do what she could to help other people be aware of breast cancer and avoid what had happened to her. I was already full of admiration for her heroism during the awful trials and tribulations of her cancer treatment, but when I saw her going out and doing this charity work I was even prouder of her.

So that’s why I’m doing the London 2 Brighton walk for Sarah and CoppaFeel, thank you so much for your donation and support!

Reuben

For more information on CoppaFeel: www.coppafeel.org