Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

I have volunteered for Homestart for 11 years and have finally combined my two favourite things to do, Homestart and running, into a long held dream to run the London Marathon.

Broadly Homestart is a charity that helps out families with small children. This includes home visiting,playgroups, well-being and mental health groups, school readiness courses and much more. In my time volunteering as a home visitor I have helped 11 families. Sometimes the help is very practical like supporting a disabled mum with two small children or a very young mum with twin babies. I have been able to assist single parents struggling with isolation, and often help where there are children with special needs. I have been an advocate for families struggling financially who need help liaising with their landlord and utility companies to get back on track. There is also a lot to be said for simply being a friendly ear and sounding board!

I recently helped a local mum who wrote me a beautiful poem when our time together was finished and this is it :

Funding for these sessions is always tight and the work Homestart does for those important early years is incredible.

This will be my last full marathon. For my local friends who have seen me running in various states of comfort,discomfort and fancy dress you will know the distance is not a problem and the photo above is me running a muddy wet 30miler !

Any help you can give to this amazing charity will really spur me on..thank you xx