Parishioners put best feet forward for CAFOD challenge

A LEES church raised nearly £6,000 for charity after challenging its congregation to walk 10,000 steps a day for 40 days during Lent.

The efforts of parishioners at St Edward’s RC Church was in aid of the ‘Walk for Water’ campaign organised by the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD).

In total, they walked 12,529,680 million steps – equivalent to 5,933 miles -raising £5,700.

Monsignor John Marsland, Priest at St. Edward’s, said: “Over the past 12 months or so walking has been a pleasant escape from the challenges posed by the pandemic.

“However, for others less fortunate around the world, walking hours on end is simply a daily toil in order to access safe drinking water – something which we all take for granted.

‘Walk for Water’ gave a great sense of purpose to our Parish family this Lent.”

Bernadette Slater, a CAFOD Co-ordinator, added: “One in three people around the world don’t have access to clean water.

“Instead, they have an arduous, exhausting, and often dangerous, daily journey to find it.

This problem is easily remediable. It doesn’t cost much to drill a borehole or set up a solar-powered pump to bring water to somewhere that doesn’t have it. But it’s money that impoverished communities don’t have.”

CAFOD stands beside people living in poverty, helping people directly and campaigns for global justice, so that everyone can reach their full potential.

£10 could buy a water container for a family; £40 could buy safe water for a school; £200 could buy bikes for a team of three engineers to service water pumps in remote communities while £750 could bring water to an entire community.

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