A Swim to Aspire Others

21st July 2020

Our Commercial Controller for Futura Foods Wales, Simon, has done something incredible for the charity Aspire!

On Thursday 16^th July 2020, Simon, alongside five other people, swam the English Channel in a relay race. It was a challenging swim in 15°c where each person in the team swam one by one, an hour each and then swapping to the next person. They left Shakespeare Beach Dover at 06:30 and arrived close to Wissant South of Calais France 15 hours and 32 minutes later.

This was only the fourth swim of the English Channel to the beach in France, in 2020. Pretty cool!

We asked Simon what his motivation was for doing this “Four years ago I had a cycling accident that resulted in some serious fractures to my spine and neck, a really scary experience. I stayed in hospital for a week and when I was discharged, I had to wear a neck and body brace for three months.

Thankfully, I survived with minimal ongoing issues. But I know how hard it is to think an injury will disrupt your life and how challenging it can be to recover from. So I did this because I want to continue to raise money for an incredible charity Aspire, as it is really close to my heart.”

Aspire are a charity which provides practical support to those who have been paralysed with a spinal cord injury, helping each person gain back their independence.

Simon has a Just Giving page set up, here is the link if you would like to donate: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/simon-offord1.

At Futura we are very proud of the achievement Simon, but it does make us wonder what the next big challenge will be!