Best friends Louisa Taylor and Louise Frizzelle from Milton Keynes have each claimed a charity place with Toybox at this year’s London Marathon.
The MK locals will join more than 40,000 runners to take on the 26.2-mile marathon through the streets of London on 26th April for the Bletchley based charity raising funds to support street children.
Toybox is a charity dedicated to supporting the lives of street children across the globe, with a UK based team in Bletchley fundraising and supporting projects overseas.
Louisa said: “Running the London marathon is something we had both always wanted to do and finally last year we decided this was the year we would try and go for it, we knew would be a huge test for us as we weren’t runners.
"We heard about Toybox charity through Louise’s sister who had previously ran for them and both of us having such a special bond with our nieces we wanted a charity that would help children around the world, we were overjoyed when we found out we got a spot to run for them in the London marathon."
Toybox supports street children who have been forced to live or work on the streets of most of the dangerous cities in the world; like San Salvador in El Salvador where gangs control vast areas of the city and use street children as young as 4 years old to carry messages and drugs, if they refuse they can be killed. For over 25 years now Toybox has been raising money to help get children off the streets and back into school, if this is impossible Toybox provides emergency support, like medical care, providing sleeping packs, a hot meal and more.
Louisa and Louise will also host a quiz at Lake View, Linford Wood in April this year to raise extra funds. They will be joined by Toybox CEO Lynne Morris. She said: "We will be joining Louisa and Louise at the quiz and can’t wait to cheer them on in London alongside the rest of our team of Toybox marathon runners."
"We really appreciate the support and hard work from the marathon runners, not just the physical training they challenge themselves to do, but the fundraising efforts alongside this to support Toybox.”
