This April the Richards family, from Pembrey in Wales, have a couple of coinciding milestone birthdays: on April 20th Sam Richards is turning 18 and three days later his Mum, Jackie, turns 50. This is a momentous time for the family who have decided to go big on the 22nd to celebrate, when they both, accompanied by Dad Martin, will be running the London Marathon for Aspire. Not your standard birthday party.
Aspire, which is a national charity providing practical support for people with Spinal Cord Injury, was a somewhat natural organisation to raise money for as a while ago Martin’s brother, Gary, sustained an injury to his spinal cord during a medical procedure.
“My brother had an operation on his spine about 30 years ago which has limited him in various aspects of his life.”
The family have their sights set on raising a colossal £6,000 for Aspire, to help fund the charity’s continual support of others in a similar position to Martin’s brother. Considering that the trio’s fundraising opportunities will be coming from a very similar collection of people makes it all the more impressive that they are confident of reaching this target.
However, for this remarkable family there may be a little more riding on their marathon attempt than their fundraising target alone as the Richards have made an application to the Guinness Book of World Records. After doing a bit of digging they found no record belonging to a father, mother and son team effort so come race day, all things going well, the three may potentially be the proud owners of a brand new World Record. Earning a paragraph in the Guinness Book of World Records wouldn’t be a bad birthday present for Sam and Jackie. Martin commented:
“By running the London marathon for Aspire we hope to lift the profile of a fantastic charity and raise lots of money in the process, if we can do this in a world record time that really would be the icing on the birthday cakes.”
You can support the family of three here: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/martin-richards13
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