REU-nopoly charity walk for Reuben's Retreat

Several people had done this before so we used their blogs to get ideas and came up with our own route - we decided doing the most economical mileage would be best to accommodation all abilities, rather than in the board order which would have been a MUCH longer day! We did all the streets, the 4 stations, the 'go to jail' (we chose Royal Courts of Justice) and 'in jail' square (we chose Tower of London) and free parking.

We estimated it would take us around 7 hours and using google maps we guessed around 21.5km. The number 23 is special for Reuben's Retreat because the Graham family had the lovely Reuben for 23 months and so we hoped to finish on 23 point something kilometres and we'd allowed a little for getting lost, finding signs and so on. But on the day it was not to be, we ended up on 26.9km in the end and it took us 7 hours 22 minutes with only a ten minute pit stop in Regent's Park! We had fun along the way, only went the wrong way once, generally managed to find signs fairly quickly and saw parts of London we'd never seen before!

So we knew we'd have a 23 somewhere along the lines we set our fundraising target at £2300. We did however smash that and to date we are at over £4000 with Gift Aid and we've been well and truly overwhelmed with everyone's support, so a massive thank you from all of us.

Reuben's Retreat was born out of the loss of a beautiful boy, Reuben Michael Graham in 2012. The charity was set up in his name and to date has supported over 760 individuals. They support families who have lost a child and those who face an uncertain future due to their child living with a life threatening or life limiting condition. They offer counselling, support groups, well-being activities, holistic therapies and respite breaks to families. They are currently renovating their forever home in stages to create a holiday home from home for families to visit together and make precious memories with their children. Every penny & pound donated will enable them to take a step closer to completing their retreat and providing a sanctuary for families who desperately need that special time together.

If you'd like to know more this is their website www.reubensretreat.org.