While lockdown has been hard and difficult for a lot of people, Gareth McNally is using the opportunity to do some good.
Gareth, who is Operations Director for Responsive NDT at Lillyhall, has set himself the challenge of running 70 miles by covering five miles a day for fourteen consecutive days as his local exercise.
His challenge is all in aid of Calderwood House homeless hostel in Egremont and his target for fundraising is £700. Contributions and donations can be made online via Golden Giving at www.goldengiving.com/fundraising/Gareth-McNally-70-Mile-Challenge.
Gareth, who grew up in Egremont, is no stranger to running. Over the past two years he has completed the Great North Run twice, raising over £2500 for Calderwood House. However, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, he’s unlikely to be able to make it a hat trick. Instead, Gareth’s decided to raise funds in a different way, particularly important as Calderwood House has also had to cancel its planned fundraising event, the Calderwood Sleep Out, which was due to happen on Friday (24 April).
“I just wanted to do something different and still raise the funds for this brilliant local cause,” said Gareth. “Rachel and her team do an amazing job within the community and, like a lot of good causes, they’re losing funds as events and other donations are affected by the pandemic.”
Rachel Holliday, CEO of Calderwood House, said: “Responsive and its staff have always supported us at Calderwood House, raising money, offering us training space and sponsoring our events, even delivering hand sanitizer for staff and residents – you name it!. When Gareth called me and said what he was thinking about doing, I thought it was brilliant but also completely mad. I hope it inspires many others to use their exercise hour during COVID-19 for the good of others. Our staff are currently working 24/7 around the clock to keep our homeless residents safe. It’s amazing that people like Gareth want to help us to do that. In all the misery COVID-19 has brought us, there are some real acts of kindness and I should have known that one of them would come from the team at Responsive.”
