Run by Nick Swan, from Bude, the event saw a number of the Bude CLIC Sargent fundraising group members either having a go on the exercise bike or shaking their buckets for any spare change towards the cause. Nick is set to ride across Britain this month, from Lands End to John O’Groats, in order to raise money for the charity, which is close to his heart.
Nick’s five-year-old daughter Isabel was diagnosed with lymphoblastic leukaemia in May 2017, and on August 19 finished more than two years of treatment.
However, Nick knows that this is not always the case for some families, with many having to deal with losing a child to cancer.
This month, Nick will undertake the Ride Across Britain event over nine days and covering 980 miles. Nick and the other participants will cycle on average 115 miles a day, and Nick is aiming to raise £5,000 for CLIC Sargent.
As well as this, Nick is helping to raise awareness of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month for CLIC Sargent, who are hoping to make people more aware of the travel costs young cancer patients have to face.
Nick said: “On Friday, May 19, 2017, my daughter Isabel, who was three years old at the time, was diagnosed with leukaemia. Since that day our life has been full of hospital visits. We live in Bude so our closest hospital is in Exeter, which is 45 miles away, but we also had to go to Bristol for some of Isabel’s treatment. Our travel costs have been one of our biggest expenditures over those last two years.
“For a period of six months we did over 100 visits to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, a 90-mile round trip, just for her treatment and this doesn’t include the visits to the hospital when her temperature spiked or our trips to Bristol. During Isabel’s first year of treatment we drove over 20,000 miles. A travel fund would help so many families and would prevent so many families getting into debt. Every parent will find the money to make sure their child can get to the hospital so they can get the treatment they need. I know for a fact that there are so many others who had to travel these distances as well for their child, to have some support covering those travel costs would just be amazing.”
For more information about CLIC Sargent’s Childhood Cancer Awareness Month campaign, visit www.clicsargent.org.uk/join-our-fight/get-campaigning/childhood-cancer-awareness-month/. To donate to Nick’s Just Giving page, visit justgiving.com/fundraising/nick-swan-clic-sargent.