---
title: Alastair walks towards hope
date: 2024-07-01T13:29:00+01:00
author: Kate Mulkern
canonical_url: "https://cuf.org.uk/about-us/news/alastair-walks-towards-hope-as-a-fundraiser"
section: News
---
---

 

  

# Alastair walks towards hope

Fishmonger Alastair raised £500 through a sponsored walk

---

- Story
- 01 Jul 2024
 
---

 

 

 

          ![](https://cuf.org.uk/assets/images/_1008x567_crop_center-center_82_none/Alastair-Walk-Towards-Hope-2023-Medium.jpg?v=1789660270)  

 

 

 

I was looking for a way to play a part in helping people and the Walk Towards Hope felt like an answer to that. I was on the Canterbury Press website looking for a book and a Church Urban Fund advert for the walk came up. Last year I started going to church again, I’d drifted away since my teenage years but I felt this increase in my faith to go back to church. It’s kind of funny really because I was just saying my evening prayers and I’d been thinking about how I could help people, I came down and opened my phone and the ad was right there. I felt that I’d sort of been directed to get involved.

I hadn’t heard of Church Urban Fund before but I looked on the website and I liked this idea of helping communities to meet the needs of local people. The support for people facing homelessness and refugees really inspired me to do the walk. I felt that strongly and I liked the advent theme of walking the 90 miles like Mary and Joseph’s walk to Bethlehem. I live in a little village near to the north Norfolk coast and it’s a really good place for walking, there’s some amazing beaches and walks through farmland here.

I worked out how many miles I would need to cover to reach the target on Christmas eve using my days off each week. I think it was eight miles per walk and luckily the weather was pretty good! I find walking is a good opportunity for reflection and thinking about things. That’s the great thing about it, as your body does it automatically I’ve found it frees up your mind to think. It was a challenge to reach the 90 miles and some days my legs ached for sure but it felt really good hitting that target. Knowing I was raising money to help people spurred me on when my legs were tired and wanting to honour the donations of people who supported me was a part of that too.

I asked my friends and family to donate and they were really generous. I work as a fishmonger at Burnham Market and I know a lot of local people, so I printed out a poster for the shop. I’d speak to people about what I was doing and they were really enthusiastic. I had some really generous donations from local people and I was quite surprised at how generous people can be. I was nervous asking at first but I always had a positive response and people had questions for me and wanted to support a good cause. I’d say for anyone looking to get involved in fundraising like this be enthusiastic and talk about it because people are really interested.

Things are pretty tough for people at the moment and its been fairly tough for our family also. I think that experience makes you want to help other people who are less fortunate than yourselves. The strength of church communities gives me hope. There are a number of different churches in the Burnhams Benefice that our congregation attends on a rotation together and I really feel part of that community. Prayer is also a really strong thing and that gives me hope for sure. I haven’t done any sort of fundraising before so the Walk Towards Hope was new experience for me,

 

 

I really enjoyed it and will definitely do something like this again.

Alastair, CUF Supporter