A dozen members from Silves Rotary Club, supported by friends with a combined age of over 850 years, have certainly “an avowed intent” to walk the Caminho Português from Valença to Santiago de Compostela.
Starting on September 24, the pilgrims will walk some 120km over six days to provide children with learning difficulties attending primary school in Armação de Pêra a calm and ideal place to learn.
Silves Rotary Club pilgrims are asking for your help to raise €20,000, 100% of your donations will go to turn an old classroom and scrubby garden into a harmonious learning space with all the necessary resources. Any contribution no matter how small is welcome.
Looking at them, you would not bet on these pilgrims making it. A couple have recently had hip replacements, one a heart surgery, another an 80-year-old dodgy knee, whilst others have suffered a sprinkling of other injuries that one picks up in your seventies. Yes, the average age of the pilgrims will be over 70. They are “the walking wounded”, as they call themselves.
Why go through the challenge? The answer is to raise money for a fantastic cause and to inspire you to make a donation so that the Club can resource a much-needed sensory room and garden for autistic and Down’s syndrome children in Agrupamento Escolas Silves Sul.
“The children need a calm, safe haven to enable them to benefit fully from their time in school. The dedicated teachers at the school need the tools and resources to provide the children with the necessary skills to live independently in the future,” states Silves Rotary.
Each pilgrim will be supported by a class of pupils at the Agrupamento Escolas Silves Sul and carry a mascot presented to them by their class so that the pilgrims can share their experience daily with the schoolchildren. Progress and events on the walk will be shared via a GoFundMe page, a blog and social media.
You can donate now at GoFundMe.com by searching “Help Pilgrims Change Kids Lives” or via webpage www.silvesrotaryclub.org
For more information, call 912 584 999 or email [email protected]
