A 10-YEAR-OLD girl who has walked 50 miles with her father for charity arrived to cheers and applause as the pair finished their journey yesterday (Sunday).
A 10-YEAR-OLD girl who has walked 50 miles with her father for charity arrived to cheers and applause as the pair finished their journey yesterday (Sunday).
May de la Rue and her father Colin arrived in Lowestoft after completing their walk which began in Felixstowe and took them along the Suffolk Heath and Coastal Path.
May decided to embark on the walk in memory of her aunt Emma who died this summer.
May achieved her target of raising �10,000 to help disabled youngsters through the Suffolk Foundation, an umbrella charity funding good causes. The money will be match-funded through the government's Grassroots Challenge scheme giving a total of �20,000.
The pair, from Melton, near Woodbridge, started the walk in August and split the journey into stages which they completed at weekends and in the holidays. Details and pictures of their journey were recorded on May's website www.fiftymileswithmydad.com.
Mr de la Rue said he was immensely proud of his daughter. 'It is more than just the achievement of walking fifty miles,' he said. 'She has turned a sad event in her life, a bereavement, into something positive.'
May gave a speech at the Royal Norfolk and Suffolk Yacht Club where a reception was held.
She said: 'As you know I am doing this in aid of the Suffolk Foundation to support young people with disabilities in Suffolk, especially to help them get out and about. That is because I have realised that many people like me who do have the chance to do things like this haven't done it very often and have spent too much time being lazy in front of the TV.'
May said that on Saturday she had visited a girl of the same age who has an illness in her bones and is helped by a local charity to go swimming. 'I have seen that it is the people who find it more difficult to take part in activities who would most dearly love to do so, that it why I think it is important to support them,' she said.
Suffolk Foundation chairman David Sheepshanks said: 'We are absolutely thrilled they have chosen to do this for the Suffolk Foundation. I am particularly delighted to see May aged 10 feeling so passionate about doing something for charity.'
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