College tutors embark on a trek across the Sahara for charity

Five tutors from East Sussex College Hastings will be taking on a 40km trek across the Sahara Desert to raise money for charity.

Sport and Public Service tutors, Craig Ottley, Pete Matthews, Dan Marsh, Adam Nichols, and Jon Emson, will be flying to Marrakech on Wednesday 6th November, to prepare themselves for the challenging five-day trek across one of the world’s largest deserts.

The team will be walking in aid of St Michael’s Hospice, the college’s charity partner of the year. In September 2018 the college chose to support St Michael’s Hospice during a year of fundraising to help the hospice provide crucial care for people facing life-limiting illnesses.

Craig Ottley, Curriculum Lead for Sport and Public Services at East Sussex College Hastings, said, “We’re all really excited about undertaking this once in a lifetime opportunity. We’ve been training and trying to prepare ourselves for the physical task of sand dunes and bracing ourselves for temperatures above 30 degrees during the day and perhaps almost freezing at night.

“We’re hoping to round off a great year of fundraising by reaching our target of £1,500. This will go towards our overall total to so that we can help the charity to provide one full-day of care. We’re proud to be walking for an amazing cause in St Michaels Hospice and help them continue to offer our community a truly amazing service.”

This is the third challenging fundraising event that the Sport and Public Service team has undertaken this year. Back in March, they completed the Nuts Challenge, a gruelling 7km obstacle course through water, mud, climbing walls, tunnels and obstacles. They then took on the Hastings half marathon and will round the year off in North Africa.

You can donate to the team’s Just Giving page here: www.justgiving.com