Maddy Ellis, from Little Paxton, is preparing to swim the English channel in September to raise money for her favourite children’s charity, Over The Wall.
Maddy, aged 27, plans to swim the 21 miles between the UK and France, whilst aiming to raise £10k for the charity that provides free residential camps for children with serious illness.
Maddy has previously volunteered for the Over The Wall’s camps in Staffordshire, helping children with health challenges to reach beyond the boundaries of illness to discover a world of mischief, magic and new possibilities.
Having previously been a runner in full and half marathons, Maddy is no stranger to a physical challenge, but this will be her first long-distance swim.
For the last two years s Maddy has been training by swimming in open water for many hours (and even in freezing lakes), whilst also taking regular ice baths to climatise to the cold temperatures expected.
Maddy will be one of very few people to have achieved this challenge, as there have only ever been 2,428 successful channel swims, since the first in 1875 and only 37 per cent of these were women.
As a vegan, Maddy will be among even fewer swimmers that have - as she describes "been powered only by plants".
Maddy said, “I often have wild ideas, but this one popped in my head two years ago, and I immediately registered to do it before anyone could talk me out of it. Volunteering for Over The Wall is one of the best things I have ever done and so it means so much for me to be able to fundraise for the charity and to help provide more opportunities for children to experience camp.”
The outbreak of Covid-19 meant that Over The Wall was forced to cancel its camps in 2020 and 2021. However, the charity quickly developed a virtual, interactive online platform called Camp in the Cloud that has brought some of the joy and magic of residential camps to the home.
“Camp in the Cloud has been an amazing alternative to normal camp, and Over The Wall has done wonders to allow the children to be active, connect with each other and most importantly, have a lot of fun, " explained Maddy.
If you would like to sponsor Maddy on her channel crossing, you can do via her JustGiving page: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/otw-channel
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