My name is Olivia and  I will be running 158 miles to raise money for the UHB charity to help fund the new Birmingham Transplant Centre. I would love to raise £5000 so please can you dig deep and sponsor me as much as you can afford to keep me motivated (158 miles is a lot of running for a 10 year old) and lets raise as much money for this fantastic cause as we can. I will be keeping you all regularly updated on my progress and I will be getting different people to run with me to make it more fun!!! Please read my story below.

My reason for supporting this fantastic charity is very personal to me. On the 14th March 2020 my Grandad received a life saving Heart Transplant as the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham. He had to stay in the Hospital whilst he waited as he was on the urgent transplant list, he was there for over 4 months waiting – that is how poorly he was. He was so far away from us and his home as Birmingham was the only hospital that could carry out the Heart transplant he needed.

I am running 158 miles as that is the distance from my home to the hospital, the distance we regularly drove to go and visit him. I plan to run my last mile in Birmingham and it will take me to the hospital where I will cross my finish line and meet the staff from the charity to hand them over the money I have raised. 

The staff at the hospital took such good care of my Grandad, looking after him when we couldn’t be there with him and they got him the heart he needed – giving me my Grandad back. I want to say thank you to everyone at the hospital which is why I am running the miles and trying to raise as much money for the centre as possible. The new centre will be a national centre for excellence for organ transplantation and will be funded in it’s entirety by UHB charity. The new centre will bring all of the specialist care to patients undergoing organ transplants. There are only two hospitals in the UK that carry out all four organ transplants : Heart, Liver, Lung and Kidney – The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham being one of them.

You never know if you or someone you love will need a life saving transplant but if they do you would want to make sure they were in the best hands and in the best place. So please help me to help support the charity making it happen.

Olivia x x x