Hospice's midnight walk gives staff at care home a night to remember

Red Oaks Care Home hoped to raise around £800 at St Barnabas House hospice’s Night to Remember where more than 1,000 people came from far and wide for the event on Saturday.

Linda Ryan, general manager at Red Oaks Care Home, said: “Taking part in this challenge has been a huge amount of fun and everyone at the home has been behind us all the way. It’s for such an important cause. I’m very glad to be able to do my bit to raise further awareness and money for the charity.”

The Red Oaks team included Linda Ryan, Marilyn Knight, Ashley Hobbs, Becky Urquhart Hobbs, Frances Urquhart, Becky Davis and Niamh Ryan and they were cheered on by residents, relatives and staff along the way, starting at Worthing Leisure Centre at the earlier time of 10.30pm.

Shortly before the start of the 11th annual walk, everyone was told a collective total of £106,147 had been raised for the Worthing-based hospice.

As in previous years, there were three different routes for walkers, covering seven miles, 13.1 miles and a challenging 20 miles to Shoreham and back.

First home were Vijaya Rudraraju, Rajini Kancheti, Jayatha Ponagoti, Kavitha Katti, Daniel Twine and Jade Twine, who completed the seven-mile walk in just over two hours.

Lucy Brady, events fundraiser at St Barnabas House, said: “We decided to make some major changes to this year’s event by allowing men and children to take part and moving the start time forward to 10.30pm in order to make Night to Remember more family friendly. It has definitely paid off as we had the most walkers we’ve had taking part since 2015.”

Worthing mayor and mayoress Paul and Sandra Baker and Worthing youth mayor Katie Waters went along to meet the walkers.

Mr Baker said: “This, over the years, has become such a major event in the town, and such a major fundraiser, everybody doing a wonderful job for a wonderful cause.

“You people are so inspirational in what you’re doing. All I can say to all of you is thank you so much.”