Updated on Jul 10th 2011 at 1:39 PM from the JustGiving API: We did it and I made it! :D More to come soon...

Updated on 12 July 2011: thank you SO MUCH from the bottom of my heart for helping me smash my target and raise 250% of what I had thought was a pretty ambitious figure!  Avebury ROCKS and so do all of you! :D

 

Why am I doing this?

Like so many other people I know, I have lost friends and loved ones to cancer, including my grandfather John Cuccurullo and my father-in-law David Lodge, and watched others go through hell from the disease.  But my uncle Jack Cuccurullo's 3-year fight with cancer, which he eventually lost in February 2010, has really affected me.  It tore a hole in my life along with the lives of all our family and friends, especially my mother (his sister) who was by his side during this whole time.  We felt like we were just getting the chance to get close to Jack all over again after his retirement, before he was taken away from us.  Cancer rips apart too many families these days, and I've wondered if there was anything I could do to make an impact against cancer.

Jack's illness has inspired me to make some positive changes in my life.  I lost weight, started making a conscious effort to walk more each day, tried to eat more healthily, and cheered my uncle on when he tried to fight cancer through diet, which did improve his quality of life towards the end.  So maybe I could used my improved health and fitness in some way...

During Jack's last years, I told him about Love Hope Strength, and about the prayer flag at Everest Base Camp with his name on it ("Really?" he said bemused, "that's something").  I talked about my mad friends - including musician Nick Harper - who walked up mountains and played music to help those who couldn't get the care he took for granted.  And he told me he had watched the "Everest Rocks" documentary. and been really impressed by those who had trekked.  I let him know - in words and actions - that I understood what the trekkers had done, because I would have done whatever I could to help him.

In the end, it was his hospice nurses who helped him when no one else could.  They were the angels who made his last days at all bearable.  And it was the same for Nick Harper's mother Monica Weston, who was cared for by the staff of Prospect Hospice.  And that's where Avebury Rocks comes in.

In the name of Jack, John, Davey and our other loved ones who died from or suffer with cancer, I will be joining Nick, Mike Peters of the Alarm (a cancer survivor himself), further Love Hope Strength musicians and other trekkers on a 20 mile charity trek through Wiltshire on Saturday 9 July 2011, starting and finishing at Avebury, one of the finest and largest Neolithic monuments in Europe.  The event will be raising funds for the Prospect Hospice, and raising awareness for Love Hope Strength and the work they do worldwide.

Further information (including details of the concert after the walk, if you'd like to come along) can be found at these pages:

http://www.lovehopestrengthfoundation.co.uk/

http://www.lovehopestrength.org/

http://www.harperspace.com/nick-harper-lhs.html

Please give if you can.  I may not have much chance of getting to the top of Kilimanjaro or Everest (or even Snowdon for that matter!) - yet - but I am dedicated to making it through these 20 miles.  For Jack.  For me.  For you.  For all those we love with cancer.  And all those we've lost.

 

A final blurb on donating via this page: Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure.  Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails.  Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer.  So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.  So please dig deep and donate now...