A walk of just 3.54km (2.2 miles) has brought life-changing mobility to a young boy suffering a degenerative illness.
This year’s annual West Coast Charity Bar Walk in Aljezur - they call it a fancy dress pub crawl! - raised €2,717 for local causes.
And last weekend organiser Cath Baker, from Vale da Telha, presented 13 year-old Nuno André Chirac Ribeiro with an electric wheelchair shipped over from the UK.
The wheelchair, and a ramp, cost €1,041 and after watching Nuno try out his new wheels, Cath told us:
“I just can’t get his smile out of my head. He can now be independent and it was just lovely to see him so happy. He told me that I am his very special friend and that made me cry, bless him.
“But it is down to a lot of people, the co-organisers of the Charity bar Walk Steve Scott and Brian Jutsum and, of course, the 50-plus walkers themselves, all the bars which joined in and the lovely people who donated to this worthy cause.
“A special mention, too, goes to John Scott at Algarve Removals who once again transported the wheelchair and other items for free from the UK, as they did with the items we had shipped over in the last two years”.
The remainder of the money raised from this year’s September walk is being used to provide equipment for a sensory room Cath is organising for the special needs children at the local Aljezur school.
“This room will help them relax and we are fitting it out with a bubble machine, projector, fibre optic lights and two large bean bags, which leaves us with just €12 from the total raised,” Cath went on.
“The plan is then, that with future Charity Bar Walks, we can buy more things for the room every year including, hopefully, a water bed next year.”
