Jonathan’s 50 mile Ultramarathon
Many of you will know that I’ve been a trustee of the Tim Parry Johnathan Ball Peace Foundation for a long time. This is the charity set up by Colin and Wendy Parry after a terrorist bomb killed Tim, their 12 year old son, almost 25 years ago. I’m a father of 3 boys of a similar age and I can’t begin to imagine what they went through.
When many people think of the charity today they think of it being something to do with Warrington, maybe something to do with youth work and maybe something to do with Northern Ireland. This is all true – but the work we do today is so much more than that.
The charity runs the Survivors Assistance Network – the lead organisation for helping survivors of a terrorist attack. In today’s world this is frighteningly all too common. When incidents happen, like the recent Manchester bomb, many people are massively affected. The Peace Foundation is the organisation that steps in to help them get their lives back together and to help them make sense of what has happened to them and their family. You might have thought it’s the Government or NHS that sorts this sort of thing out. It’s actually us.
And the Peace Foundation plays a vital role in educating our children to help them think for themselves so they don’t become easy targets for being radicalised. Our programmes are in schools nationwide and are having an incredible impact.
I could go on for hours about it all as I’m so proud of the work we do. You can read about it here in far greater detail than I could ever explain.
To try to help them raise the vital funds they need (it’s flipping tough being a charity these days) I’m taking part in a ludicrous sponsored run. I’ve agreed to run from the top of the Lake District to the bottom of it in 24 hours. That’s 50 miles and over 4000m of ascent over several mountain ranges. There may be more walking than running!
I’ll be doing this on 7 October and I’d be eternally grateful if you could spare a few pounds to sponsor me. It’ll certainly make the pain more bearable on the day. You can do that here
Thanks for your time
Jonathan
