Marathon effort raises £6,000 for charities
STEVEN SALAMON chose to run the London Marathon for the first time this year, having originally signed up to support Norwood in 2020. Moved by the death of teenager Oli Leigh, who took his own life in 2018, Steven chose to raise funds for Norwood, who supported Oli and his family during difficult times, as well as for the charity he jointly set up in Oli’s memory, The Oli Leigh Trust.
Norwood’s relationship with Oli’s family ran deep and extended over generations. Norwood worked to support Oli – described by his friends as a bright, cheerful and muchloved young man, who found it hard to communicate his feelings or to seek support from his loved ones — at his school in the months leading
I am not really a runner, so this was a massive challenge’
up to his death.
The charity, which supports people with learning disabilities and autism and children and their families facing challenges, also supported Oli’s grandmother as a child, through the Jewish Orphanage, which was a group home in Norwood, South London, housing a large number of homeless children from underprivileged backgrounds, from the 19th century until the 1960s.
On running a marathon for the first time, Salamon says: “I am not really a runner, so this was a massive challenge for me personally, but one I tackled head-on.
“The challenge was made all the harder by the double postponement of the event due to Covid-19 and the
consequential disruption to my motivation and training.”
Salamon lives and works in Cardiff, where his grandfather settled after arriving from Austria as a refugee in 1939.
He owns a third-generation family business, a delicatessen, kaffeehaus and liquor store called Wally’s Delicatessen.
He completed the marathon in a time of 05:24:37 and reached his £6,000 fundraising target.