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Two granddaughters run to bridge distance for elderly

Alice and Joelle

University students Joelle Davis and Anna Hernandez ran a marathon to raise £2,700 and provide Mount Alvernia with 14 Samsung tablets that enabled residents to keep in touch with their families during lockdown.

Their grandmother, Alice Cortes, is a resident of Mount Alvernia.

“The idea of fundraising sparked after doing some research on Alzheimer’s and dementia just before going into our first lockdown,” said Ms Davis.

“I messaged my cousin Anna Hernandez, who is also Alice Cortes’ granddaughter, to join me in this fundraising idea of running a marathon over the duration of a month.”

Within 12 hours, the duo had set up a GoFundMe page and started running.

“We surpassed our goal of 26.2 miles slightly before the month was up and continued to run until we met our £2500 goal,” she said.

But thanks to community support, that total is now up to £2700.

In addition to the tablets, they have also donated 60 colouring books and 37 colouring pencil packs.

“Unfortunately, our grandmother Alice is at a stage with dementia that she’s fairly unaware of her surroundings,” said Ms Davis.

“However, because of the tablets, we can keep in touch every day and all the way from the UK too, so that’s more than enough for us.”

“We are there for her in ways that we made possible and I’m sure she would be so proud if she was aware of the situation.”

They have kept their page open for donations and are now coming up with ideas to raise more funds over Christmas while they are home in Gibraltar.

“We understand that Christmas can be hard, away from loved ones, especially after having them there every single year, so we can really empathize with families in Gibraltar who have family members within the Elderly Residential Services,” said Ms Davis.

“And, this has brought us to start up the fundraising again to do what we can,” said Ms Davis.

To donate go to https://www.gofundme.com/f/running-for-alice

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