WE HAVE MADE THE MILLION!!! SUNDAY'S GREAT FUN WALK EVENT

John Baron MP: 2018 Fun Walk smashes £1,000,000

2,000 walkers and stallholders raise money for numerous charities

The annual Fun Walk took place at Barleylands Farm yesterday (Sunday, 2 September). Around 2,000 walkers and stallholders raised money for numerous charities and good causes. Because we now already know the amount donated into this year’s bonus pot, we know yesterday’s walk will bring the total monies raised since the Fun Walk’s inception in 2002 to over £1,000,000.

The exact monies raised by the charities at yesterday's event will be made known at the Presentation evening on 23 November 2018 (at Anisha Grange, Hallmark Care Homes, Billericay) when bonus pot cheques will be awarded to each charity and good cause taking part. As usual, the bonus pot sponsors and the local press will be invited.

Yesterday, there was a massive BBQ courtesy of 'Team Handsome', music courtesy of Gateway 97.8, a field bordered by stalls and a variety of other refreshment tents. Billericay's Town Crier, Jim Shrubb, helped proceedings along. John also said a few words of thanks before he and Jim led the walk off. As usual, medals were awarded to the walkers at the finish.

John said:

"This year's walk has smashed £1,000,000 in total monies raised since we started the walk in 2002. It has been a tremendous effort by our family of volunteers, to whom we all owe a great debt of gratitude. Many good causes, people less fortunate than ourselves, and animals in need, have all been helped by our efforts – we can be very proud.”

“My thanks for Sunday’s walk go to the 2,000 walkers and stallholders for taking part, to the Marshalls, to the wonderful team at Barleylands for hosting the walk, to the Army cadets for car parking duties, and to our own family of volunteers and Committee members for making it all possible. We now wait to see total monies raised from the charities."

"Our thanks also go to our bonus pot sponsors which this year were Swan Housing, c2c, Abellio Greater Anglia, Tunnelcraft Ltd, Brown & Carroll, Hallmark Care Homes, Leonardo, McDonald’s, RSE Building Services and others.  Their £40,000 will help many good causes and actually pushed us over the £1,000,000 mark before the charities themselves raised any money on the day."

"Finally, our thanks go to Hallmark Care Homes for sponsoring the medals, to the team from Waitrose for volunteering on the day, to Abi’s Catering Supplies Ltd, to Gateway 97.8 for great music, to the Essex Ambulance Service for also manning an ambulance on the day, and to Jim Shrubb, our Town Crier. It was a great team effort all round.”