We are a group of 6 friends from the Oswestry area who when our friend Matthew who now lives in Crete with his family needed to raise funds for cutting edge life changing surgery for their beautiful 6 year old daughter Mabel who was born with Cerebral Palsy to be able to walk we felt we needed to do something more than just make individual donations.

Mabel was born with her twin Arthur 10 weeks early and spent the first months of her life in hospital. Her brain damage meant that from an early age she faced challenges and she is yet to walk independently and relies on a walker for short walks and a pram for daily mobility. The exciting news for the family was that Mabel has been medically approved for life changing surgery called Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy (SDR), this will have to take place in USA under the care of Dr Park who invented the procedure.

Sadly the procedure is costly and our friend Matthew and his wife Maria need to raise $100,000 to pay for the operation that will change their daughters life.

For more information about Mabel and her story please follow the link below:

https://whydonate.com/en/fundraising/help-mabel-walk

When faced with this we as a group of friends felt that we needed to do something to help our friend and his daughter beyond making individual donations to try to help reach this large goal.

Without the time to be able train to run marathons or something more extreme we felt that it would be apt and possible to do a very challenging and difficult walk which is something most of us are lucky enough to be able to do and take for granted.

So despite none of us being regular or experienced walkers, and some of us not being particularly fit we have decided to take on the challenge of walking the length of over 2 marathons in just over 4 days up Offa's to finish near Oswestry our home and where our friend Matthew is originally from.

Starting in Herefordshire, then up into the Shropshire Hills, then back into the hills of the Welsh Marches and we finish where the dyke passes near Oswestry. We will be travelling through Powys, Herefordshire, and Shropshire.

Most walkers would only do this trail between April and October and would take 5-6 days to do this large section but we will be attempting to do this in less than 5 days in the changeable and challenging weather of February.

We are walking to be able to help Mabel's dream to be able to walk herself and we would be so grateful if you could help us make a little girls dream come true.