Pamela Bissland from Eddington Lodge in Kendal inspired a team of close friends, now known as the ‘Famous Five’, to join her and raise an impressive £11,101.85 for two local hospices. The group of five, plus guide, completed a 7-day hike along the Kendal Limestone Way earlier this year, covering the 101 km route from Skipton in North Yorkshire to its finish point at Kendal Parish Church, where they received a warm welcome!
With their fundraising now completed, the hikers have split the money equally between St Mary’s Hospice in Ulverston and St John’s Hospice in Lancaster, both of which have provided outstanding end of life care to three of the team’s nearest and dearest during the past year.
On Friday 18th October Pamela was joined by fellow walkers Janet Warriner, Gary Anderson, Sandra Coulter, Adrian Potts, and their guide and responder Paul Whiteman, to mark their achievement and present a special cheque to the charities. The team’s individual fundraising was topped up by £1,000 from the Churchill Foundation, Churchill’s own charity, to boost the total amount going to support these amazing hospices.
Other local businesses also provided valuable support, including The Ring o’ Bells, Castle Inn, and Kendal Golf Club who hosted fundraising events, and the Kendal branch of Lakeland who made a generous donation of £2,000.
On presenting the cheque, Pamela said: “I’m very proud and grateful for this achievement. We could never have done it without the tremendous support from our family and friends so we’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who donated and helped us along the way. I’d also like to thank the Churchill Foundation, as their match funding scheme is what inspired me to come up with this challenge in the first place – it’s amazing how much it snowballed from there! Both these hospices really do mean a lot to us, and we’ve all seen the amazing work they do every day, so it’s wonderful to be able to give something back in this way.”