Student Kate is going on the run to help children
AUNIVERSITY student will take part in this weekend’s London Marathon for a children’s charity.
Kate Hawker, from Poynton, will run the 26 miles and 385 yards on Sunday, April 23, in aid of the NSPCC, a charity she has supported from the age of 11 after staging fundraising dance shows. Now a student at Durham University studying modern languages and cultures, Kate is also a Childline schools service volunteer, working with young children and delivering assemblies.
An aspiring teacher, Kate says she is ‘ not a runner’ but uses it as an escape from the competition of life.
She says: “I’m not a runner, and to start with the training was quite hard. A lot of my friends who are runners said that seasoned runners should start training six months before hand, but I needed to get to that level first.
“I started training quite early, in fact as soon as my place on team NSPCC was confirmed. In the beginning I was running shorter distances, but I’ve been building it up and now I’m doing 18 mile runs once a week.
“Now I really enjoy running because it’s a great way to get away from everything. I love the fundraising aspect of it too, in university everything about my life is competitive, whether it’s for grades, in exams or searching for jobs.
“With this it’s just me, I’m not competing with anyone but myself, and it’s really nice to have that.”
Kate was given an award by her local NSPCC fundraising committee in 2012 for her dance shows which eventually raised more than £6,000.
Kate has set herself a target of £2,200 to raise, and has so far brought in £1,571 but she’s aiming as high as possible for what she says is a ‘forgotten charity’.
She added: “My goal is to raise at least £2,200. I’m over half way there, but I’m hoping to beat that target as much as possible. I feel it’s so important to fundraise for the NSPCC and Childline because it’s so often a forgotten charity.
“So many people support a charity because they have close personal experience with it, but people can sometimes forget that there are some children in the country that desperately need the help the NSPCC provides.
“I’m just happy I can do something to help.”
If you would like to sponsor Kate, visit justgiving.com/fundraising/ Kate-Hawker1