In December I turned 75. I aim to run 75 miles, solo, in my home town, Haywards Heath, between 18 February and 18 March. Those were my late parents’ birthdays.
The Anglo-Ghanaian children’s charity my run supports is Lovey Foundation (UK), charity no.1191631. I became a founder trustee of that in 2016 because my father passed his grammar school entrance exams but couldn’t take up his place - his parents couldn’t afford the uniform.
Thanks to inflation (almost twice as high in Ghana than here), it costs about £70 to equip a subsistence farmer’s child for school in rural Bawku and Binduri Districts, NE Ghana. That's for the uniform, sandals, backpack, exercise books and personal stationery they must have. With your help I aim to raise £70 per mile so 75 more girls' and boys' lives can change this September. We've supported almost 700 so far since 2013, the majority of them girls.
From 18 February to 18 March 2023 I ran 72 miles at 72 for the same cause, but in November that year I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and, thanks to an NHS that they don’t have in Ghana, I immediately began 6 months of successful hormone and radiotherapy treatment, but I was only able to start running again in autumn 2025. So apart from my being three years older and running three more miles than three years ago, this run is quite a challenge for me. But nowhere near as tough a challenge as child labourers in rural Ghana face, who cannot access the primary school education we all take for granted.
Please sponsor me generously, with GIFT AID if you pay UK Income / Capital Gains Tax, so we can reclaim 25p for each £1 you give.
Questions about my run, please to melvyn@loveyfoundation.org
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PROGRESS BLOG (10 February) : Just eight days to go before my rain-soaked practice runs become the real thing, the 75 miles that you are kindly supporting me through. My runn
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