Preparing to pound the pavements for Lily's Rainbow Fund

​Rebecca Fox, 26, is taking part in the Belvoir Castle Half Marathon in August to raise funds for a campaign set up in memory of four-year-old Lily Harley, who passed away from a rare brain tumour in March last year.

Lily’s parents, Emily Morton and Josh Harley, launched Lily’s Rainbow Fund to raise money for OSCAR’s Paediatric Brain Tumour Charity in her memory in June 2023, three months to the day of Lily’s passing, and to date, the fund has raised more than £17,000 for OSCAR’S.

Since then, Emily has embarked on a new career as well as fundraising in Lily’s name, working for East Midlands Ambulance Service as an ambulance support crew member in September 2023, with the view to becoming a paramedic.

And now her colleague Rebecca has pledged to take part in the half marathon after promising Emily that she would take on the fundraising challenge after a crew night out.

She said she has been finding it difficult to train around her shifts, especially working nights recently, but after being able to complete 5km and 10km runs with relative ease, she’s now aiming to finish the challenge in an allotted time.

"It’s been going quite well, and I’m hoping finish in under two hours, they say that the crowd carries you and once the adrenaline gets going it should be good,” Rebecca said.

It was Emily’s strength to continue after the loss of Lily, Rebecca said, that inspired her to want to do something to raise money:

"I never met Lily, but Emily is amazing and she started a whole new career just months after Lily died, I don’t know how she does it,” she said, "I thought if she can just crack on after what she’s been through, then we can do anything – it’s just putting one foot in front of the other.”

To make a donation to Rebecca’s fundraising challenge for Lily’s Rainbow Fund, visit https://www.justgiving.com/page/halfmarathonlilysrainbowfund?utm_medium=fundraising&utm_content=page%2Fhalfmarathonlilysrainbowfund&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=pfp-share