Birmingham Hospice is the new name for Birmingham St Mary’s Hospice and John Taylor Hospice.

Their vision is a future where everyone with a life-limiting illness will live and die with dignity and in comfort. Offering personalised support at home, in local communities or at the hospices, they help people across Birmingham to live well with their illness, right up to the very end of life.

My husband and I are running the 'chocolate 5K' in memory of my amazing dad 'Matt' and we wish to raise money for the hospice who cared for him and so many others in their time of need. Every penny raised towards this amazing charity will change a families life.

My dad fought an incredible battle over 5 years which ended at Birmingham (St Mary's) Hospice. Those final weeks were not easy but we cannot imagine how much worse they would have been had he not received the care at this hospice. Its difficult to summarise and do justice when describing the hard work and care the team at Birmingham Hospice provide, but to give you a snippet in to my dads care, he was given his own private room with a view of the garden, the team sat and chatted with him, humoured him as he had the 'craic' (anyone who knew him knew his sense of humour), he made the nurses laugh and gave them their own nicknames, they made him smile. They ensured he wasn't in pain by administering and monitoring his pain relief, maintained his dignity, brought tea and biscuits to the family and once we watched him take his final breath, they let us spend an extra few hours with him, so we could say our goodbyes.

They continued to support the family after my dad passed away and offered us grief counselling as we came to terms with this huge loss.

Now I know 5K doesn't seem like a big deal.... but we're not athletic and if anything can get me and Rob running it would be Chocolate and so it helps that we'll be greeted with a chocolate station after every Kilometre. After all the Toblerone and Pigs in blankets consumed over Christmas this is going to be a bit of a challenge.

Any penny you can spare will go a long away and even if you can't, please share our page.

We will keep you posted on our progress and training!

Thank you all.