A brave team of 22 Specsavers staff ran 10km for charity last week as they took part in a high-altitude road race.
Joining 44,000 other participants for the 2017 Great Ethiopian Run, the group ran to raise funds for the charity Vision Aid Overseas (VAO), which has been the company’s international eye care charity since 2008.
The runners, who assembled from different branches across the UK, hope to raise more than £57,000 to help VAO provide sustainable eyecare in Africa and improve the life of people with poor vision.
All members qualified for company sponsorship, with the first £1,000 of the £2,600 minimum donation per runner donated by the optical group.
Bicester store director Sarah Marshall spoke about the conditions she and the rest of the team faced: ‘It was hot, hilly and due to the altitude, I felt like I couldn’t breathe for half of the run. But when you run with over 44,000 people, with many more watching, it turned into an amazing experience. A really big well done to the other Specsavers colleagues who I ran with.’
VAO has raised over £600,000 for Zambian eye care including an optometry technologists training course at the Chainama College of Health Sciences in Lusaka, ten staffed vision centres across Zambia and a national eyecare outreach programme.