Riley Walks 50 miles in April for Team Evie!
Riley Hunter, 3 from Workington, has taken on the challenge of walking 50 miles in April to raise money for Team Evie.
Yes, we know – this is really impressive! However… this does not even tell half the story! Riley is a true Evie hero and a true inspiration.
Riley was born in May 2017, 10 weeks early. He was taken to hospital in Sunderland and needed a ventilator to help him breathe. After a couple of weeks he made it back to West Cumberland Hospital where he was cared for in the Special Care Baby Unit for over 5 weeks before being discharged home. Due to Riley’s lungs being underdeveloped he needed to be on oxygen, and we provided a SATs monitor for the family so they could monitor his oxygen levels at home and make sure he was OK. We have included some pictures of Riley in hospital in the gallery below, so you can see just how far he has come and how amazing he is!!
Riley’s mum and dad took on our 3 Peaks Challenge a few years ago to raise money to help other families, but this time it was Riley’s turn to take on a challenge! We are so proud of him – he is the first baby we have supported from birth who has grown up to do a challenge to raise money for us – a true Evie hero!!
“We did the challenge because during lockdown 3 Riley kept asking to go on big walks. He had been learning about how to keep healthy from school and in Riley’s words ‘walking keeps me healthy’” Riley’s mum Nicola told us.
He really has smashed the challenge. With still a few days to go in April Riley has already surpassed his 50 mile target and walked a whopping 65 miles!
“As he was really enjoying walks, we thought it would be a good idea to try and raise money for charity. We’re always saying to Riley ‘it’s nice to be nice’. Team Evie supported us with Riley, so we thought it would be nice for him to fundraise for the charity that once helped him! We are so so proud of our little superstar for completing 50 miles in 17 days!!”
You can see from the gallery below that Riley has had a great time out exploring and getting his miles in (all Team Evie branded up too! What a legend!) and done an amazing job of the challenge. And with all his efforts he has raised an incredible £281 to help children like him and families like his!
Thank you so much Riley! It is difficult to put into words how proud we are of you… needless to say there have been a few lumps in the throat here at Team Evie seeing the daily updates of his challenge.
We remember the day so clearly that the Hunters got their SATs monitor – we met the wonderful Maria from our Advisory Panel to present the new monitor and she said “I’ll have to go there is a family who need this today!”… and here we are nearly 4 years later showing off how well Riley has done with his challenge!
If you would like to sponsor Riley for his walking challenge you can find his Just Giving page here
You can read the full story of Riley’s challenging start in life here in our Showcase Saturday episode from 2018 written by Nicola
