Solihull swimmers make a fundraising splash for Meningitis Now

Ranging in age from 10 to 18 years old, the swimmers from Simply Swimming at Saint Martin’s School raised £1,000 in total – with half going to Meningitis Now and the other half to the British Heart Foundation. 

Each participant swam for an hour each and between them the swimmers completed an incredible 4,066 lengths – the equivalent of 101,650 metres or 63.16 miles. This is three times the English Channel, according to Simply Swimming’s Tim Mayled.

“This was an amazing achievement by our swimmers, I’m so proud of all of them,” said Tim. “We chose Meningitis Now to raise funds for in memory of the son of an old friend, Rod Adlington, who I have known since I was 18 and was also his best man.”

Barney Adlington died of MenB in 2005, aged 3. Dad Rod has worked closely with Meningitis Now since then to raise funds and awareness about the disease and is now one of the charity’s trustees.

In addition, Tim said his nephew had had meningitis 20 years ago, although was now fully recovered. “Meningitis can be such a devastating disease, so I was delighted to chose Meningitis Now as the charity to fundraise for with our swimathon,” he said.

“Anything we can do to help raise awareness about the disease is worth it”.

Intrepid swimmers

Sheena Mason, Meningitis Now's Major Gifts Manager, said, “Thank you so much to all the intrepid swimmers who splashed their way to such a great result and raised money for us.

“We’re always grateful to anyone who helps us to raise funds and also raise awareness about meningitis so I want them all to know that the money they raised will be going to a great cause.

“And if there are any other swimmers out there who would like to get involved them please do get in touch – we have a great event called Splash Now which allows you to fundraise doing more or less anything water-related!”

To find out more about Splash Now or other Meningitis Now fundraising ideas please visit our fundraising pages.