Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Just under a year ago I had an operation for a full left hip replacement and felt the need to get my life back on track afterwards. A friend of mine, Ian, suggested I might train and join him on a six day 600Km mountain bike race called Go2BERG from south of Johannesburg through the Drakensberg mountains in South Africa. There is a lot of climbing involved and it is all off road. Before I realised I may have bitten off more than I could chew, and with one prosthetic hip I signed up for it and have been training since last November. Having just turned 60 I will be one of the oldest attempting this ride. There have been a few set backs on the way: my mountain bike was stolen 3 weeks ago, the crankset on my road bike sheared off  a week later during a training ride in the steep hills of Devon and I have now been diagnosed with arthritis of the right hip and right knee.  So I better get on with this before my loving wife puts me out into a field or I get turned into dog meat. I now have a replacement bike and Ian and myself are off to South Africa on the 1st June. 

Why am I doing this?

As a self employed architect and at the start of the pandemic in March 2020 I saw all my building contracts disappear overnight and with near zero income combined with the fact that my 3 hungry sons suddenly returned home from university to eat us out of our house, I quickly realised feeding my family was going to be a major financial problem. Luckily I had help from my lovely Dad but for a lot of people they are not so lucky. With the current cost of living crisis and increasing food poverty, things are only going to get a lot worse for a lot of people including those who would not normally use foodbanks. Currently 70,000 school age children go to school without breakfast each day in London alone which to me is a really sad fact for such a rich country.  So for the past two years I have been volunteering once a week, (apart from the 5 weeks I could not drive due to my hip),  for a local Foodbank; SOFEA Fareshare (South Oxfordshire Food and Education Alliance), as a delivery van driver working out of their Milton Keynes warehouse.  Despite all my architectural work coming back on track, I am determined to continue to support the Foodbank, which has been even more in demand than ever. I feel passionately about tackling food waste and I have seen first hand those who are going hungry and homeless. When people are hungry it affects more than their physical health. Constant worry about how to pay for food and energy bills can lead to anxiety and an overwhelming sense of helplessness.  On my deliveries around the Thames Valley I get to meet some incredible volunteers helping these people at various homeless shelters, hostels, hospices, schools, care homes and community larders.

As a FareShare regional partner, SOFEA redistributes over 1,550 tonnes of food each year to 120 voluntary sector partners such as homeless shelters, hostels etc. In turn, these organisations cook meals and feed around 8,500 vulnerable individuals each month.  SOFEA’s current network of 22 Community Larders across the Thames Valley, and 9 across Milton Keynes support 445 families and 2,570 individuals by distributing 20.2 tonnes of nutritious food each week (equivalent to almost 50,600 meals).  SOFEA is a transformative education, training and mental wellbeing charity enabling disadvantaged young people to re-engage with learning, skills training and work. In 2021-22, they supported 70 learners and 197 trainees aged 14-25.  SOFEA support these young people from their two large warehouse depots based in Oxfordshire and Milton Keynes, they have the dual function of saving food waste with our partner FareShare UK.

I am fully funding all the expenses of the event personally so everything you donate goes straight to the charity. I hope you can give generously.

Thanks in advance

Mark