Our popular Technical Services Manager Ian Douglass and his daughter Abi recently returned from China, having completed a 6 day trek along the Great Wall. Their aim was to help raise money for the Alzheimer’s Society and their efforts evoked a wonderful response from their vending industry colleagues.
It was a very personal mission. ‘This cruel disease took both my father and now my mother, who was once a strong independent woman, is facing everyday life with Alzheimer’s’ Ian said. ‘As a family, we’ve received exceptional support from the Alzheimer’s Society. From the death of my father, through my mother’s diagnosis, and the support they’re giving her.’
Ian and Abi were part of a group hoping to raise £155,000. But when the final reckoning was completed, the Alzheimer’s Society group had raised the eye-watering sum of £200,114.64.
‘I’m blown away by the figure’, Ian admitted. ‘There were 45 of us in our party and we all bonded straight away, even though none of us had met in advance. We all helped each other out and we all finished the course. What a fantastic experience! We climbed the equivalent of 1,340 flights of stairs in just 6 days.
‘This disease has no mercy, there is no way to control it, let alone cure it. All you can do is try to understand it and the different ways in which it affects people. It tears their lives apart – and the lives of their families’, Ian said.
The Alzheimer’s Society is the UK’s leading dementia support and research charity. It’s available to anyone affected by any form of dementia in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Organisation provides information together with practical and emotional support, to help people get along with dementia as best they can. It also invests in world-class research. The ultimate goal is to defeat the disease for good.
The Alzheimer’s Society also campaigns to improve public understanding of dementia and the devastating impact it can have; making sure it’s taken seriously and acted on by the government.
‘Abi and I would just like to thank all our friends in the vending industry that made a donation towards this amazing total’, Ian said
