On Sunday 1st July, following last year’s successful event, we hosted a family fun run in Victoria Park, Worthing, with local supporter Tania Burrell, to raise funds for the charity and awareness of how to prevent most group B Strep infection in newborn babies. This year’s Strep B Stomp was again another huge success and has raised over £3000 so far.
Tania has been heavily involved in raising awareness of group B Strep since she lost her newborn son Blake to a group B Strep infection just 25 hours after his birth in 2009. Tania says,
“The idea behind the Strep B Stomp is to help raise awareness and to get people talking about group B Strep infections. Group B Strep is not routinely screened for during pregnancy and is something I had absolutely no idea about until I had Blake.”
And for 2018 Tania showed even more dedication to the cause, having organised the Strep B Stomp to take place 3 days after her wedding and the day before she went on honeymoon!
Jane Plumb MBE, Chief Executive at Group B Strep Support said,
“It was a wonderful event with over 100 fun runners taking part, from tiny babies in prams to grandparents. We are so grateful to everyone who took part, our sponsors and to Tania Burrell who organised this event just 3 days after her wedding. The charity relies on fundraising. Events like this enable us to raise awareness and provide vital support for families whose lives have been affected by group B Strep.”
This event was sponsored by Stagecoach and their Coastliner bus route. Stacey Churton, Marketing Manager at Stagecoach said,
“Stagecoach were delighted to have been lead sponsor in this years Strep B Stomp in Worthing. Our services are integral to local community and we felt that this was a great event to be involved in, we were pleased to be able to offer free travel to and from the event for runners wearing their event t-shirts. Our local Operations Manager Rob Vince took part in the run on the day itself and said there was a great atmosphere and was really pleased that he participated, the Stagecoach team who attended the event on the day with our promotional stand had a really positive day speaking with runners and their families. I would also like to congratulate the GBSS team on their hard work in putting on the event and the fantastic total raised so far.”
The event was well supported by local businesses including Avantguard, Peter’s Dean Care, King & Chasemore Estate Agents who put the Strep B Stomp on their local boards during June and Extech, who sponsored the water station at the event.