Thank you for joining CAFOD’s Christmas Fun Run 2022!
CAFOD’s Christmas Fun Run 2022 took place on Tuesday 27th December. Thank you to everyone who took part in Liverpool, Bollington and virtually across the country!
The Fun Run may have been and gone but it’s still not too late to donate to our Christmas Appeal for communities in East Africa suffering with terrible drought this winter.
Liverpool
This was CAFOD’s 39th Christmas Fun Run in Liverpool and the first since 2019 where events were able to take place inside and out. In recent years, as with everything in our world, the fun run has been affected by the COVID pandemic. In 2020, the event was completely virtual with people participating in all areas of Liverpool and across the country to run and walk 5k. In 2021, the fun run returned to its usual venue of the Wavertree Athletics Centre and The Mystery Park, but as the building was in use as a vaccination centre, and in order to maintain social distancing, the event was held entirely outdoors.
Finally, though, in 2022, the Christmas Fun Run was back with events indoors and out, including face-painting, catering from The Health Chef and music from The Speakeasy Bootleg keeping spirits up in the cold temperatures.
As always, we were so happy to see that the event had a fantastic turn out, and our local celebrity supporter who has taken part in all 39 fun runs, Frank Cottrell Boyce (thank you, Frank!) , was there with his family.
Event organiser, Colette Byrne from CAFOD, has called 2022 the year that Liverpool’s Christmas Fun Run was finally “back to its former glory” post-pandemic.
“What a tremendous turn out for this wonderful Christmas event. Every year we look at the weather and just hope that it won’t be too off-putting for people to come along and we were not disappointed at all. We have a fantastic team of volunteers who help with the event and they really did a phenomenal job!’.
‘Everyone was wrapped up and some donned some fabulous festive outfits to run or walk around our two routes in The Mystery. There were smiles all round and I think people really appreciated the opportunity to get back to normal again. We are so delighted with everyone’s support for the event. Thank you so much for making it another success!”
Bollington
In Bollington, the Christmas Fun Run was another great success. Despite poor weather, our supporters still came out to run, walk and, in the case of some our furry participants, sniff their way around Bollington Recreation Ground for CAFOD.
John, one of the organisers said “It was wonderful to see our supporters taking part, despite some rather wet weather.”
But it’s not just the runners who deserve special thanks, teams of CAFOD staff and volunteers, supporters and parishes come together to put on these events. John continued by extending “A huge thank you to volunteers Chris and Tim for all their work in organising the run and a special mention to the parishes of St Gregory’s, Bollington for allowing us to use their parish hall; as well as St Alban’s, Macclesfield and Fr Pascal for their wonderful support.”
To everyone who participated in Liverpool and in Bollington and to everyone who helped to make that happen, thank you.
Virtual
As with last year, many of our supporters chose to run wherever they are around the country, making the Christmas Fun Run a truly national event. CAFOD’s own Neil Roper ran from Norfolk where he was spending Christmas with family.
“Myself and my wife Amanda had a lovely run along the coast in Sheringham for our CAFOD Christmas Fun Run. It was great to be able to ‘virtually’ join with hundreds of CAFOD supporters from around the country while raising money for CAFOD’s work around the world.”
The Big Lent Walk
If you too would like to raise money for CAFOD’s work around the world then this Lent why not join the Big Lent Walk and run or walk 200km in 40 days to help fight global poverty? Walk on your own or in a team, whenever and wherever you choose collecting sponsors as you go, it really couldn’t be simpler. We’ve even got our own free app that you can download to track your progress or you can use one of your own.
Visit our website for more information or to sign up today and get started!