Thanks to Martin and Sue Parnell and the community of Cochrane, the Lindsay Kimmett Kindergarten in Mto wa Mbu, Tanzania, Africa, will be getting a new playground.
The sixth annual Martin Parnell Walk/Run was held on Dec. 31, 2015 at the Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre. The goal was to raise $10,000 to build the Sue and Martin Parnell playground for the African school and to purchase a bouncy castle as well.
According to Parnell, the event had around 120 participants, which is an increase from previous years.
In the past, the proceeds from the event have gone towards Parnell’s “Quests for Kids” initiative, which wrapped up in 2014 after he raised a total of $1.3 million and helped 27,340 kids.
Parnell said he received numerous requests from past participants asking him to continue running the event. He decided to approach Lau and Leesha Mafuru – directors of Boma Africa, a non-profit tour company that undertook the building of the school – and they formed a partnership to supply the playground.
This was a special event for Parnell as it was his first marathon after discovering he had a large blood clot in his brain in February 2015.
Luckily, the clot was found in time to save his life.
“This would have been my first year not running a marathon since 2003,” he said.
After receiving the news that treatment had shrunk the clot significantly, he was cleared by his doctors to take part in the 2015 event.
“It was tough – but I had people going along beside me giving me inspirational quotes.”
His personal goal was to finish the marathon within six hours and he met that by finishing at five hours, 16 minutes and one second.
Parnell exceeded his fundraising goal for the event as well.
“We raised $4,790 on the day of the event, which brought our total to $12,066,” he said, adding $5,720 had been raised before the walk/run thanks in large part to the Rotary Club of Cochrane and Downunder Travel Ltd.
The playground is now under construction and set to be completed by the end of January.
Parnell will use the additional funds raised to buy books for the kindergarten class.
With the event a success, Parnell gave a big thank you to Sport Centre General Manager Robin Mitchell and his team for all their help.
He will hold another fundraiser, called Books are the Playground of the Mind, on Jan. 15 at Indigo Signal Hill in Calgary.
Ten per cent of all sales between 6:30 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. will go towards purchasing schoolbooks for the students at the Lindsay Kimmett Kindergarten.
Parnell and two other authors will be at the store signing books.
