Keira Smith
Mt Kilimanjaro 2022
Fundraising for 2 Wish
Story
Kilimanjaro Trek 2022
How do you ever come to terms with losing a child?
The answer... you don’t!
Losing a child is every parent's worst nightmare and the worst kind of loss someone can experience. So, what support is available to help bereaved families navigate the most tragic time of their lives?
Sadly, the answer is very little!
In 2012, Rhian Manning's experienced the sudden loss of her son George, closely followed by her husband Paul and the family soon learnt that there was no real support in place. Whilst still dealing with her own grief, Rhian started to think about supporting other families who faced the same tragedy, and George & Paul’s legacy, '2 Wish Upon a Star' was born...
For Rhian’s Story please watch this video:
When my daughter, Mali died in February 2019, I received a call the very next day telling me that 2 Wish Upon a Star would be there to support me all the way. In time, they went on to visit my family at home and pay for counselling and alternative therapies for me. And there was far more support available from the charity that fortunately I didn’t need to access personally.
To this day, I still have no idea who referred us to the charity but I know I will forever be grateful that they did; I’m not sure what my path would have looked like had they not.
2 Wish Upon a Star is a Welsh charity that provides immediate and ongoing bereavement support for families, individuals and professionals affected by the sudden and tragic death of a child or young adult aged 25 or under and relies on donations to keep their services running.
As a way to say thank you and to give something back, I have decided to take on the mammoth task of hiking the world's largest freestanding mountain, Mt Kilimanjaro, in February 2022, to fundraise for this amazing Charity. And unbelievably, these two fantastic buddies of mine, David ‘Sheeny’ Sheen and Paul ‘Dodgers’ Rogers have decided to join me.
The trek will take place over 7 days and we’ll be doing it as part of a wider expedition group with 2 Wish Upon a Star.
We would be enormously grateful for any support you can offer. We have a target of £1,000 per person that we have to achieve in order to climb the mountain so anything you can contribute, however small, will be greatly appreciated. All donations go directly to the charity and are not used to subsidise the trip in any way.
If you know of any businesses that may like to sponsor our trip or would like to get involved in fundraising, please feel free to contact any one of us.
For more information on 2 Wish Upon a Star, please visit their website https://www.2wishuponastar.org/
Thank you all so much!
Keira, David & Paul xoxo
**UPDATE: 5th APRIL 2021**
Hi All
Just a quick update from us...we have been blown away by how quickly we reached our target and we are endlessly grateful for all of your generosity. We wish we could thank you all personally but please know that no donation has gone unnoticed and we’ve appreciated all the comments, support and encouragement. We appreciate every one of you so much. This money will go directly to helping families and others affected by the death of a young person and will make a huge difference in their lives.
Now that we’ve hit the target we need to, we’ve been encouraged to raise as much money as we possibly can for the charity. We have some ideas for further fundraising and with that in mind, we’ve increased our target to £5k to see if we can raise even more money for this amazing charity!
Lotsa Love
Keira, David & Paul xoxo
**UPDATE 8th JANUARY 2022**
Hi All
A quick update from us….we’re disappointed to let you know that our trek in February has been postponed until October due to COVID and in particular how quickly the OMICRON variant is spreading. The positive news is that the trip is absolutely NOT cancelled and we’ve already started the process of booking our new flights in October!! Whilst we’re disappointed not to be going next month, we appreciate it’s been an incredibly hard decision for the charity and the expedition company to make and we feel it is the right one to keep everyone safe.
October 2022 will mark the 10 year anniversary of 2Wish and we’re even more excited that we get to climb Kili at such a poignant time for the Charity!!
We also just want to thank you all for your continued support, sponsorships and to everyone who contributed to the raffle before Christmas. We’ve smashed our targets and we’re beyond grateful to each and everyone of you!
Thank you & lotsa love
Keira, David & Paul xoxo