Cure Leukaemia raises £115K from Great Birmingham Run

BIRMINGHAM-based charity, Cure Leukaemia, has boosted its coffers to the tune of £115,000 from the BUPA Great Birmingham Run.

Amongst 20,000 runners a team of 455 ran the streets of Birmingham in red and white shirts to raise the funds.

The charity’s fundraisers congregated in the Team Cure Leukaemia Headquarters at the Brasshouse on Broad Street before the race and were split into two teams, Red and White, to compete against each other in a light-hearted Head2Head challenge.

Team White were overall winners on the day winning three of the four accolades. They secured the best average time of 2hrs 14mins compared to Red’s 2hrs 16mins.

Team White member Andy Peat was first to finish with a time of 1hr 13mins and Annie Woodhouse with a time of 2hrs 2mins was the highest individual fundraiser with £2,524.

Team Red raised the highest amount, £61,484.19 to Team White’s equally impressive £54,069.29.

Andy Peat, who works for Cure Leukaemia’s charity partner Deloitte in their Nottingham offices, said: “I’ve always been a keen runner but have never represented a charity before so to have been the first to finish the BUPA Great Birmingham Run for Team Cure Leukaemia is a great honour. My mother died from this terrible disease last year and I know the tremendous work that Cure Leukaemia are doing to combat the illness so it made perfect sense to raise funds for the charity. It was a special event to be a part of and I hope many more people will consider raising money for Cure Leukaemia in the future.”

Annie Woodhouse, from Shrewsbury, whose nephew Jack suffers from leukaemia, was also thrilled to have raised such an amount.

She said: “When my four-year-old nephew Jack was diagnosed with leukaemia it came as a huge shock to myself and my family but through the amazing work done by Cure Leukaemia Jack, along with many other patients, has the chance to fight for his life. For that reason I ran for Cure Leukaemia and I’m delighted to have been able to raise the highest individual figure and do my bit to help the charity.”

The half marathon, which has been the charity’s largest fundraiser to date, will allow Cure Leukaemia to fund vital new specialist nurses across the region to administer potentially live saving clinical drugs trials to terminally ill leukaemia patients. Supporters included teams from Deloitte, the West Midlands Fire Service, Warwickshire County Cricket Club, OGL computer and Cure Leukaemia’s specialist nurses and patients.

James McLaughlin, Cure Leukaemia CEO, said: “Last year we had 25 runners and we raised £8,000. This year we wanted to improve on that figure but we could never have imagined the tremendous support and enthusiasm from our runners and fundraisers who took to the streets that weekend.

“To put it in perspective, the Highgate Firefighters raised over £8,000 themselves and for us to achieve a total figure in excess of £115,000 this year really has been beyond our wildest expectations. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who contributed to Team Cure Leukaemia; you all made it a day that will live long in the memory.”