KIND-HEARTED Coventrian Mark Woodward will brave the Brighton Marathon on April 2 to raise vital funds for the Coventry Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre (CRASAC).
Cash collected will go towards providing pre-therapy intervention workshops for over 600 people waiting to access CRASAC’s counselling services.
Over the past five years, CRASAC has seen a 350 per cent increase in the number of people on its waiting list for support, while during that same period, funding has reduced by 10 per cent.
This has meant many sexual violence survivors can wait up to 18 months to get the specialist counselling they need.
Mark was never a keen runner growing up but took it up in 2017 after being invited to a parkrun and embarking on the Couch to 5k challenge.
He took on his first marathon last year, raising £670 for Prostate Cancer UK, and decided he wanted to run for a local cause in 2023.
Mark chose the charity after dealing with CRASAC in his role as a student success coach at Coventry University.
He said: “This cause is so incredibly important and I’ve seen that in my role helping students.
“I hate asking people for money, especially with the cost-of-living crisis impacting people’s lives so much, but with recent media stories and programmes, I believe the support CRASAC provides is more crucial now than ever.
“It’s been a bit harder to train during winter but I’m regularly running to keep myself in shape and it’s a small cost when you think about what this will do to help the charity.”
Visit justgiving.com/fundraising/mark-woodward12 to donate to Mark’s page.
