It wasn’t easy but it was definitely worth it for siblings Leah, 6, and Jacob, 11, who raised over $10,000 in memory of their grandmother who they lost to cancer this summer.
“It makes us very happy,” said Jacob of the community support the two received, adding that grandma too would be happy.
Three months ago, the two children decided they would raise the large sum of money for Hospice Wellington after the organization touched their hearts by the way it cared for their grandmother.
So the Kitchener natives pledged to run the same number of kilometers as their age for grandma, launched the fundraiser Jacob & Leah's Run for Hospice Wellington and ran on Sept. 20.
And there stood grandpa at the end cheering the children on with Timbits and lemonade, just like grandma used to.
“She would be very proud of them,” said their mom Tonya Veltman.
“I know that she can see it now and she knows they did a great job. She was so proud of them when they did a bake sale a couple of years ago and she would be so happy and so proud that they did this in her honour.”
On Friday, seven members of the Veltman family will hold a little ceremony at Hospice Wellington where Jacob and Leah will present a cheque of over $10,000 to the organization.
“We’re taking some baked goods for the staff and everything to say thank you and everything since we probably won’t be out there again,” said Veltman.
“It will be a final little goodbye.”
Veltman said the children worked very hard practicing for their big run in the summer at Waterloo’s RIM Park.
“It was challenging at the start. Closer to the end, it was getting hotter. We were getting tired and it was getting harder,” said Jacob.
He said they hope the money they raised will be used to help others the same way their grandma was helped.
“They really did a great job trying to get out there and showing initiative. I’m really proud that they brought this up and kept pushing for it when they saw grandma at the end,” said Veltman.
The third-party fundraiser was set up by John Gilbert, events coordinator at Hospice who had previously stated that Hospice Wellington has a budget in the millions, and half of it relies on fundraising from the community to offer free services such as counseling and grief support to parents and families.
