MORE than 50 schoolchildren gathered at Sun Hill School in Alresford last Saturday to take part in a charity marathon relay event to raise funds to support three runners who will all be taking part in this month’s Virgin London Marathon.

The children, from schools including Sun Hill infant and junior schools in Alresford and Cheriton Primary School, smashed the target of completing the 26.2-mile relay and managed to complete ‘four’ marathons between them – a whopping 104.8 miles!

And, in case four marathons weren’t enough, the day finished with a ‘dads versus children’ football match, which resulted in a draw.

The event netted £270 to support Alresford runners Kathryn Vaughan and Caroline Sorgi, and Beauworth colleague Sarah Townsend, who will be running the London Marathon on April 23 in aid of three deserving charities – HemiHelp, Get Ahead (supporting those with head and neck diseases and cancers), and Heart Research UK.

The school fundraising event was the brainchild of Alresford woman Denise Grant, whose son has hemiplegia, a life-long condition caused by injury to the brain that affects movement on one side of the body to a varying degree and can also cause other less visible effects such as epilepsy, specific learning difficulties, anxiety or challenging behaviour. Hemiplegia affects one person in every 1,000.

HemiHelp, one of the runner’s chosen charities, has supported Denise’s family and will continue to be invaluable to them in the future.

She wanted to help the runners raise even more funds and to put on an event which would encourage children to get active.

Karthryn said: “Thanks to everyone who came to our marathon relay. The children really rose to the challenge and ran with great purpose and pride. Thanks to everyone’s very kind generosity, we managed to raise £270 for our three chosen charities.

“As well as the children and their families, we would like to say a special thank you to Jack at Tesco Express, Alresford, for supplying food for the barbecue and the marshmallows, Julie Mountain for providing us with and manning a fire pit so our budding athletes were well fed, Sun Hill infant and junior schools for the use of the playing field and the facilities, and Denise for coming up with such a great fundraising idea.

“We are all incredibly inspired by the children’s amazing achievement and will keep this in our thoughts on the big day.”