Community / Team Jackson smash £20k target and bid for next fundraising milestone ahead of marathon
Lerwick Celtic Football Club donated £1,400 to two charities after festive raffle
A TEAM of runners raising money for a child with cancer have smashed their initial £20,000 target – months before they run the London Marathon.
Nine Shetlanders will take on the famous capital course on April 27 in aid of two-year-old Jackson Haining, who was diagnosed with high-risk neuroblastoma last year.
A massive fundraising effort was launched following his diagnosis for the charity Children with Cancer UK, led by Jordan Thomason – a friend of Jackson’s dad, Brett.
After setting an initial goal of raising £20,000, Team Jackson have been forced to revise their target after smashing that milestone this week.
It comes after Lerwick Celtic Football Club donated £1,400 from the proceeds of a lucky number fundraiser over the festive period.
The club, where Thomason is a coach, also donated the same amount to a fundraiser which will see Leonard Goodlad, Andrew Goodlad and Kristoffer Thomason run the London Marathon to raise money for mental health charity Mind.
The trio are raising money in memory of footballer and rugby player Iain Goodlad, who died early last year aged just 29.
As well as the Lerwick Celtic fundraiser, Glasgow rivals Celtic and Rangers have also donated prizes to be raffled off to raise money for Jackson.
And signed Manchester United and Manchester City tops are expected to arrive in the isles soon too.
Thomason – who helped organise a fundraiser for Luke Malcolmson in 2023 which raised almost £80,000 – said he knew from experience how generous people in Shetland were.
“It always surprises me, but in some ways it doesn’t,” he said of the fundraiser’s success.
“We set a target of a minimum of £20,000, but when it became apparent we were going to cruise past that we had a chat with each other and said the next milestone has to be £30k.
“I’m relatively confident we’ll get past that.”
He said the team have had to “think outside the box” in terms of fundraising this time, with a rum tasting night at Islesburgh last year set to be followed by a gin night.
Thomason said they have also been “fortunate enough” to have contacts at clubs such as Celtic and Rangers, who have donated prizes to be raffled off.
“We’ve told them the story, and nobody has said ‘no’ so far,” he said.
Children with Cancer UK has been “very, very grateful” about the team’s progress so far, he said, with the fundraising total continuing to climb.
And JustGiving – which Team Jackson are raising money through – have even contacted them to offer support.
“They reached out to us last week and said that we were one of the top fundraisers in the country for the event [London Marathon],” Thomason said.
“They’ve offered us a one-to-one contact for anything we need.
“It shows we’re doing okay.”
Jackson was diagnosed with cancer last August, two months before his second birthday, which dad Brett told Shetland News last year had come as a “complete shock”.
He began treatment at the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital, as part of a programme that could take between 12-14 months.
Jackson went to Glasgow in November to allow doctors to harvest his stem cells, and Thomason said the youngster had “battled through” that treatment.
“I think they [Jackson’s parents Brett and Rachel] were prepared for that being quite hard, which it was,” he said.
“But Jackson battled through it.
“He’s doing remarkably well for such a little boy.
“There’s still a long way to go, so it’s just one step at a time.”
Thomason has run a marathon before, so says he “knew what he was letting himself in for” as training for the 26.2 mile course begins for Team Jackson’s nine runners.
Even still, he admitted it was “a wee bit of a shock” lacing up the running shoes “after not running for a few years”.
He said the course will likely be a “piece of cake for Brett”, who ran the half-marathon for Shetland at the 2023 Island Games in Guernsey.
“The rest of us will probably struggle a bit more,” he added.
“We’re all a little bit older now.”
But Thomason said the team “just want to keep on raising money and raising awareness.”
You can donate to the Team Jackson fundraiser by following this link
You can also donate to the Mind fundraiser in memory of Iain Goodlad by following this link.
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