Mehgan Skelton, City Campus Officer
City Campus Officer, Mehgan Skelton, shares how the Move for Macmillan Campaign was born.
Move for Macmillan was born over a cup of green tea sat at a table longer than 2 meters at the Bower Ashton campus.
Moving in any way from cycling to running, heck even aerobics if you like, all to raise money for Macmillan cancer support, and boy has it been fun. There are so many places to walk in Bristol, even in the city centre.
COVID has been a challenge for all of us, but this only made me realise that this is an inconvenience to most of us in the long run.
Cancer is the biggest killer of our time next to heart disease, it affects every race, gender, and age, which is why it’s so important we support the work that organisations like Macmillan are doing.
Why am I doing this? You may ask, well I was 9 years old when my grandpa died of cancer, I’d tell you which cancer it was if I actually knew.
By the end it was everywhere from his lungs to his brain, he couldn’t even drink water because it would have drowned him.
I was 13 when my mum was diagnosed with breast cancer, a kind without lumps as a sign, and the only reason they caught it in time was because her scan was late by over a year. Had she been screened on time they would have seen nothing and by the time of the next screening it would have been too late.
So why am I telling you all of this? Getting over the ‘that’s terrible I’m so sorry’ part, the reason I tell these stories is because it makes it human.
We are all used to the statistics of how many people die every year, but numbers do not inspire change, and they don’t inspire donations. Individual stories make these charities, each and every single person.
This was the foundation for Move for Macmillan, it has been fun and helped me to get out and explore Bristol during this pandemic. As well as giving me the chance to try and give to a truly deserving cause.
We still have one week left of the original plan, and even though only a small number of people participated, it still makes an impact.
So, here’s to us defeating cancer one walk, run and cycle at a time.
To donate please visit my page: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/mehgan-skelton
or visit our Team City Campus page: Team City Campus UWE fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support on JustGiving
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