St John’s School is urging the Marlborough community to get behind an event in September to raise much-needed funds for Prospect Hospice. The Marlborough Starlight Walk, on the evening of Saturday, September 17, takes ladies on a fifteen kilometre night-time walk across local countryside.
The Starlight Walk will begin and end at the school on Granham Hill, and staff and students are keen to ensure the event is a success. “We have been promoting the walk with the students’ parents, through our newsletter and our regular email service,” says Kate Hunter, the school’s development officer.
“When the Hospice approached us, we were only too happy to say yes. The Hospice is a good local charity, and many of the students here will know someone who has been cared for either at the Hospice or by the Prospect Hospice team in the community, so this is the kind of project we are only too happy to support.”
Also joining in will be the team from Pabulum, the school’s contract catering firm. They’ll either be taking part in the walk or will be helping supply bacon rolls to welcome the walkers back at the end of their trek under the stars.
Kate hopes the support for the walk will signal the start of an ongoing relationship with Prospect Hospice. “Many of the students are taking their International Baccalaureate and, as part of that, they must complete 150 hours of creativity, action or service,” she says. And by supporting the Marlborough Starlight Walk as walkers or as volunteers on the night, they can notch up some of those hours.
Sheryl Crouch, Prospect’s head of fundraising, has expressed her thanks to the school for their support: “We’re very grateful to St John’s School for all they are doing to make our Marlborough Starlight event a success,” she says. “What we are really looking for now is for the ladies of Marlborough to step forward and get signed up.”
This is the event’s second year. Last year 170 women took part, raising just over £15,000. Sheryl hopes that “fantastic achievement” can be more than matched this year.
Prospect Hospice in Wroughton serves the Marlborough area and runs the ground-breaking Prospect at Home scheme which enables many people to spend their last days in their own home. The hospice needs to raise five million pounds a year before it can receive some top-up funding from the NHS.
To register for the Marlborough Starlight Walk, visit:
http://www.prospect-hospice.net/marlboroughstarlight or call 01793 816161. Registration costs £15, and it is hoped walkers will raise sponsorship of at least £100 each.
