Once again the villages of Kimpton, Thruxton and Fyfield displayed their incredible support for the community by sponsoring resident W02 Neil Coleman of the Royal Engineers on his epic 104 mile marathon over the weekend.
Neil took up the challenge to raise funds for the Sports Field which is at the centre of the three villages and displayed incredible mental and physical strength and dedication to complete the challenge in a little over 48 hours. Neil was joined by forces companion Andy Lapsley who thought he was just coming for a stroll but ended up doing 45 miles to keep Neil company. Chairman of the Three Villages Sports Trust Richard Smart managed to complete 52 miles in support of Neil and said “What Neil has done for our community is quite incredible. A few weeks ago he gave up his spare time to construct a 75m fence around the play area to keep the children safe and now he has run 104 miles for us. A quite incredible achievement and I know the pain he endured to get the job done. The community cant thank Neil enough for what he has done in recent weeks which has frankly transformed the Sports field in readiness for what we hope will be a long hot summer”
Other residents also got involved running a COVID Compliant Bake Sale, building picnic tables, putting up chalkboards for the children and generally helping wherever they could. We were also fortunate to get support from the wonderful team at Owtons Butchers in Rosebourne who donated meat to keep Neil and other runners fed. We also received a generous donation of £200 from Western Air which bought Neil’s fundraising up to an incredible £3200. This money will be used to buy new picnic tables, a sheltered play area for the children and a lovely nature area for adults to relax and socialize whilst the children play.
Finally Richard said “This Community is incredible. We have all struggled like the rest of the country through COVID but we have kept our spirits and thanks to initiatives such as Neil’s marathon the Community spirit goes from strength to strength. We are so proud of Neil and thank him for all he has done for us”
