Why lockdown is no obstacle for these twins
Twin brothers, who were both diagnosed with testicular cancer within days of one another, have been overwhelmed by support for their lockdown step challenge.
Ryan Collard was just 23 when he was diagnosed with stage four testicular cancer in September 2017.
His non-identical twin brother, Sean, then found a lump in his testicle and was diagnosed with cancer 20 days later – although it was caught at a much earlier stage.
The brothers have been by each others’ sides as they’ve both undergone surgery and chemotherapy.
Now both cancer free, the twins, who attended Houghton Kepier Academy, have vowed to dedicated their lives to supporting others.
This year, the fundraising pair, who set up the support organisation Cancer
Lads, were getting ready to start a mammoth awareness campaign by visiting every stadium in the English Football Leagues to spread their important message.
But due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Ryan and Sean made some lockdown adjustments to the challenge and have been raising funds for Trekstock, a charity which supports young adults with cancer.
Instead of visiting the stadiums, the pair created the Cancer Lads Stadium Steps Challenge with the goal of accumulating 2,039,262 steps in 34 days – the capacity of all league stadiums.
Having set an initial target of £200, the brothers have been overwhelmed with the
support and have already topped £1,800 with a few days still to go.
With the help of more than 100 dedicated steppers along the way, the team topped the two-million target in just 21 days and are hoping to hit three-and-a-half million by day 34.
The twins initially challenged supporters to complete 10,000 to 15,000 steps but so far the top stepper has hit 100,000 in a single day.
Sean, who lives in Hetton, said: “We’ve had a complete mixture of people helping us. Friends and family have been out and helped and so have people from the cancer community, and friends of friends.
“The challenge was to raise £100 and we thought if we can get to £200 at least that is £100 each. Both of us didn’t expect to to raise £1,800 in these difficult times.”