In May this year we at Fostering People lost our Office Manager Helen Armitage, following her brave battle against cancer, but more than that, we lost a dear friend and colleague.

Helen worked with Fostering People for over a decade and the impact she had on our agency and to us as individuals can’t be underestimated.

She was a rare individual that demanded the highest of standards must be met, she pushed us all to be better – partly because we were all a little anxious of falling short of her high expectations, but mainly because of her warmth, kindness and patience brought out the best in all that worked with her.

Helen was a perfectionist who set high standards for herself and Fostering People, but she would always go the extra mile to ensure that people knew what they needed to be doing in order to meet those expectations.

With this in mind, we are honouring Helen’s memory in a way that is fitting to how she lived her life, whilst doing our part to help less people being taken long before their time to this devastating diseases.

Every year approximately 7,600 women die due to bowel cancer in the UK.  So in a truly Helen tradition of setting incredibly high standards, we want to represent every single life lost with a mile, because of the extra mile Helen would always go.

On the weekend of 16^th and 17^th October we will come together virtually as one team, foster parents, children, staff and their families to cover 7,600 miles in 48 hours!  We'll be walking, running, cycling and any other person powered way of covering these miles.