Fenland charity walkers on home stretch to Syria
A band of volunteers have walked all the way from a Fenland town to Turkey - and they haven't even left the country.
Seven committee members from the Wisbech branch of Save the Children took on the challenge to ‘Walk the World’ with a target of 2,786 miles to help boost the charity coffers after the pandemic hit fundraising last year.
The aim of the challenge was to walk the distance from Wisbech to one of the countries where the charity works to help keep children safe and healthy and the local walkers have chosen Syria.
The team have doggedly been walking to complete the challenge and are now on the home stretch having virtually reached Karakaya in Turkey this week and have walked over 2,318 so far.
With just 468 miles to go the team, who have split into two groups have been covering around 250 miles a week with their walks around Wisbech.
On Wednesday they tackled one of the three routes offered by the Octavia Hill Walk which starts from the Chapel Road car park.
Vanita Lightfoot, branch secretary, explained: “We didn’t want to take on a challenge, which people might think was a bit too easy, but at the same time there is only a small group of us so we wanted it to be achievable and that’s why we chose Syria."
The team set a target of £3,000 and have currently raised just over a third of that, with the total standing at £1,017 but they are hoping now the end is in sight more people dip their hands in the pockets and help the charity's cause.
Vanita said: “Save the Children doesn’t just work abroad, it works here in this country too, but the pandemic has meant that a lot of our fundraising has stopped and the charity is millions of pounds out of pocket.
“We were able to carry on with some fundraising such as quizzes because they could be done online, but it is a drop in the ocean of what is needed.
“If everybody sponsored us just £1 it would make a massive difference and we could easily hit our target."
To donate visit: www.justgiving.com/team/wisbechwalktheworld
