SIR GEOFF HURST is backing the country’s leading emergency services mental health charity in a major new campaign to celebrate the efforts of frontline emergency service workers battling Covid-19.
The Laura Hyde Foundation is joining forces with We Remember Them 2021 (WRT2021) to organise the UK’s largest ever virtual relay.
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It will see events taking place in villages, towns and cities across the UK and those taking taking part will walk, run, swim, cycle, row and climb – all monitored online.
Those taking part will raise funds for the charity and highlight the work carried out by frontline emergency workers since the pandemic struck in March 2020.
England’s 1966 World Cup-winning hero Hurst, supported by other sporting greats like Peter Shilton and Ricky Hatton, is backing the charity and calling on the public to get involved.
Hurst said: “The efforts of frontline emergency workers during this pandemic is truly inspiring. I’d urge everyone to go out and take part in this event to mark the remarkable service they’ve provided to all of us in this pandemic.”
Former goalkeeper Shilton, England’s most capped footballer, added: “Time and time again during this pandemic we’ve seen lives kept in safe hands by selfless emergency service workers.
“They deserve a day where we will all say thanks. This event is a great way to go and show your appreciation.”
Former boxing world champion Hatton, now a campaigner on improving mental health, also backed the event.
He said: “This event is a great way for us all to show our appreciation to the amazing efforts of frontline emergency workers over the past year and a half.”
The initiative is also being supported by Piers Morgan, who urged people to sign up.
He said: “Emergency service workers who stepped up during the pandemic deserve everyone’s respect. The We Remember Them relay is a great way to say thank you to all the men and women who selflessly worked so hard to help protect us in a time of national emergency.”
The relay will take place through the Summer and Autumn months and will see teams and individuals carry WRT2021 batons in virtual relay legs around the UK as they fundraise for the Laura Hyde Foundation.
Liam Barnes, the chairman of the LHF, said: “The We Remember Them relay is a wonderful opportunity to say thank you to each and every frontline emergency service worker who has selflessly stepped forward over the past year and a half to fight Covid-19.
“Although we may be winning the battle with the virus, it is becoming increasingly clear that deep mental scars remain for those who have now spent more than a year on the frontline.”
Simon Wright, the Lead Volunteer with WRT2021, said: “The relay will be like no other event the UK has ever seen. And this is totally fitting given we will be celebrating the very best of British and raising funds for a truly inspirational charity in the Laura Hyde Foundation.
“We want tens of thousands of people to take part by signing up to complete a leg of the virtual relay; be it a loch swim in the Scottish highlands; a hike up Snowdown; a downhill tumble as part of Cooper’s Hill cheese-rolling or a cycle between two London Hospitals.”
For more details on how the event will work and how to sign up, visit:
https://wrt-laurahydefoundation.org
