Welcome to the "Marathon des Cows"

Have you heard of the Marathon des Sables? It’s billed as the toughest footrace on the planet and involves competitors running a marathon a day for 6 days across the Sahara Desert, whilst carrying all their food and supplies on their backs in temperatures up to 50 degrees Centigrade, some 250 Km in all. It’s not for the faint hearted!

Fiona - the Sanctuary founder – has done this race 3 times now (with Percy of course) – not because she likes doing it, but to show that as a lifelong vegan, she can. Essentially to dispel the myth that vegans are weak, frail and would blow away in the slightest of breezes.

If a vegan of 50 years can do this – as well as break 4 Guinness World Records in marathon running – then it is proof positive that the diet/lifestyle is not restrictive in any way.

So as you may be aware if you watch our posts on social media, things have not been easy these last few years following the lockdowns and now the cost-of-living crisis, the impact being that we have seen a significant fall in monthly donations to the point where our running costs are greater than regular donations by around £6000 a month.

To cover this shortfall, we are using our reserves, but these will not last for much longer – as you might expect at this burn rate.

So, the cow gang decided that they wanted to help by holding their own version of the Marathon des Sables – with a few slight twists. Specifically, they were not keen to do much – or any – running and not particularly keen to carry any supplies – or travel to Morocco...but... they do enjoy eating, chewing the cud, sleeping and exploring the fields at the new farm site. So they have all agreed to do all these things with renewed vigour over the next 2 months in the hope that they will find sponsors to egg them on.

To finish their event, each rescued cow needs to find £100 of sponsorship per month – so this could be 10 people sponsoring a Cow for £10 a month each – or 20 people for £5 each – or 100 people @£1 each.

In this way, they aim to bring in an extra £5200 a month which will go a long way towards closing the current monthly shortfall

Over the next 52 days each animal will be featured on our social media together with the unique link to sponsor them

Will you help the cows save the sanctuary? Even £1 a month will make a difference 😊