Guided city walk raising money for children’s charity

A group of walkers outside the Brian Clough statue in Nottingham
Des' similar walks around Nottingham have been popular and successful.

A guided walking tour of Nottingham will raise money for a children’s charity.

The event on Sunday (May 5) will start at Victoria Embankment.

The event, organised by fundraiser Des Oldham, 43, will be raising money for Nottingham charity Footprints.

A fee of £15 is charged for the walk which all will go towards the cause and walkers will also receive perks such as a Footprints t-shirt and a goody bag.

Des said: “This walk is a celebration of what I’ve been doing.

“I’m looking forward to getting out into Nottingham and showcasing the sights to people.”

“I’ve done some similar walks before and it creates a lot of interest and curiosity about what we’re doing.”

Over 30 people are currently taking part in the walk and it aims to show the city to people who might be less familiar with it.

This is part of a wider charity fundraiser where Des will be doing the Coast2Coast challenge, running seven marathons in seven days in September.

To help to raise more money and step up his training, he recently ran one mile for every hour for 26 hours straight on Saturday.

The run visited various locations around Nottingham and Des was supported by friends and family to complete the challenge.

Des training for his running challenge
Des works for the NHS and also leads a running club in Nottingham.

Des added: “I like to champion Nottingham myself.

“I’ve done a lot of fundraising in the past, raised nearly £200,000 in the last seven or eight years.

“It’s a bit of a mission of mine, it’s something I love doing.”

Footprints is a charity supporting children with neurological impairments using conductive education based in Sneinton.

They run two hour sessions each week for young people and their families where they support them with mobility, life and communication skills to help them achieve their maximum potential.

A Footprints worker supporting a child and her family
Footprints’ area of expertise is working with children with cerebral palsy and Down Syndrome.

Stephen Frew, business and charity manager, said: “What Des is doing for us is not just raising money but also as an amazing support, he comes to lots of our events and his support shares the message of Footprints with lots of different people and environments which is really important.

“Des’ money that he is going to contribute to the charity with his supporters is amazing and he is actually on track to cover the cost of one of the families we work with throughout the year.

“We are a charity that has to find every penny we spend to enable us to do the work we do and because we’re a service-led charity that means we have a lot of money required to cover people’s bills and salaries to be able to work with the children and work intensively with the families.

“Footprints are looking for supporters from people that will follow us on social media, people that will come to our events of coffee mornings, tea parties, dinners and Chinese banquets to enjoy themselves and contribute towards the charity, to people that will do fundraising activities such as running marathons and jumping out of planes.”

Des has raised over £2,000 on his justgiving page for his Coast2Coast run and aims to raise more money before taking on the challenge in September.