Ever since Zac's diagnosis for Epilepsy back in January 2020 he has done incredible things and has made great strides in raising awareness for this condition and vital funds for Young Epilepsy.

Young Epilepsy is a local charity that supported us when we learnt of Zac's diagnosis and helped us understand what it was and how to continue living our lives. In addition to supporting families like ours, they also have a school and college in order to provide a safe space for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. These can include epilepsy, autism, and severe learning difficulties and they currently have 172 students.

For 2024, Zac has come up with a beautiful idea to do something even more special....

Starting on the 1st January 2024, Zac is going to run a mile every day on behalf of each of the students at both the school and college of Young Epilepsy. Each day he will wear the name of the child he is running for in recognition and support of the struggles they have to go through on a daily basis.

After running the 172 miles, he will will then conclude his mammoth task by running a half marathon!!

Suffice to say, this will be a huge challenge for him and anything you can do to support him would be so gratefully received. Anything you can spare will go such a long way and will make a huge difference to the charity!

Rather than set a target this year, Young Epilepsy have given us some milestone figures with indications of what the money would achieve:

£25 - Will provide one hour of support with a Youth Support Coordinator to help a child cope with their anxiety and fears about epilepsy

£50 - Will provide a group session for six children or young people with epilepsy, helping them to better understand their condition and feel less isolated.

£150 - Would provide epilepsy awareness training for school staff to ensure their students with epilepsy are safe and included.

£500 - Can provide expert advice to develop our online resources for teaching professionals, improving epilepsy awareness and support in schools.

£1,000 - Would support our vital genetics research to understand what causes a child's epilepsy and the longer-term impact on their physical and mental wellbeing.

£2,500 - Would provide a special type of sensor that sits in a helmet designed specifically for children as part of a new type of OPM-MEG brain scanner. The new scanner will give earlier and more accurate diagnosis and better treatment options for children.

£5K could pay for fencing and food for our farm animals at St Piers. Our outdoor learning environment and multi-skills workshop provide valuable experiences for students at St Piers as well as supporting their wellbeing and social skills.

£10K could provide specialist IT equipment for use in St Piers school to help students with complex learning needs to communicate and participate in class.

£18K could provide mental health crisis support to young people every day for a year, via the SHOUT text service.

£25K could fund the online professionals training platform for a year, helping teachers to better include and support young people with epilepsy at school.

£30k could provide a new Home Video Telemetry Kit to enable assessment and diagnosis of epilepsy patients in their own home, enabling more accurate and less intrusive diagnoses.