Garry’s 1000 mile walk

Updated: 11/10/18

Here at Simpleweb, we like a sweet treat of an afternoon, which is good because we donate £1 for each slice of cake/brownie/slice (all delicious and all homemade by our Happiness Officer Georgie) that gets eaten. When the collection tin is full we donate the contents to our Charity of the Month.

Last month, our sweet-toothed team managed to raise £125 for Emmaus, a UK-wide homelessness charity with a strong community in our hometown of Bristol.

This month (and until the end of July), whatever we raise will go towards helping one man undertake a hugely impressive challenge! Garry was, until we recently moved offices, our local Big Issue seller, his pitch being just outside Simpleweb Studio One. Starting on 1 August, Garry will be walking solo from Land’s End to John O’Groats, a distance of over 1150 miles, over approximately 70 days.

Garry’s a popular character on Bristol’s Park Street, having been selling the Big Issue there for around the last 12 months. By spreading the word with his regular customers and giving away links to his Just Giving page he’s set a target to raise over £2k for the Big Issue Foundation. We’ll be following his progress on Twitter and on our blog to help him raise as much as he can. In the meantime whatever we raise via our cake donations until he sets off, we’ll be putting towards his day-to-day expenses.

“It’s about letting people know that there’s a big problem with social exclusion and poverty and, even though I’m homeless myself, I just want to make a small difference. I know that £2,000 isn’t a huge amount of money but the money I can raise for the Big Issue Foundation helps give people the chance to try and better their lives.”

You can donate to Garry’s appeal on his Just Giving page.

Garry smashes his target

Garry’s been carrying around a GPS tracker and a nifty solar charger so that we can track his progress as he goes. As of 11th October 2018 he’s just 130 miles from John O’Groats and has smashed his £2,000 target by over 200%, raising over £4,000 for the Big Issue Foundation. 

Gary tells us it’s been an epic adventure but hasn’t been a walk in the park, “I think it’s fair to say I’ve had it all thrown at me, heatwave, heavy rain, high winds, blusters, missing toenails and hard climbing, but also wonderful places and people, all in one adventure.”

Another of Garry’s customers in Bristol has built him a website where you can track his progress on the map, donate and follow Garry’s Instagram feed.

Garry we salute you!