Run For It….Today! started when Darren and Mel Wilkinson and their daughter decided not to get Christmas presents, but instead donate the money to the homeless – before ‘going one better’ and starting a fun run event.
I was inspired to start my business by …
It all started in Christmas 2017. Rather than spending money on each other, we wanted to do something meaningful by putting all the money we would spend together and donate it to the homeless. We thought why not go one better and have a go at organising a 5K Santa run. We thought we might get 20 or 30 people coming along and the idea was we would charge people for entry and give them a medal and a mince pie at the end, giving the proceeds to charity. We got close to 80 people with ITV Calendar turning up to film. Last year on our anniversary race on exactly the same date we had 410 people.
My favourite thing about running my business is…
Spending time with the runners at the end of the race. We normally put on fairly small events and they all come in running at different times, so it’s nice and friendly and we get to chat to all of them. We give them a glass of prosecco or beer and I do lots of baking. Everyone sticks around afterwards, chatting – it’s a proper little community feel.
Sheffield City region is a great place to start a business because…
We’ve had a lot of help from Voluntary Action Sheffield (VAS), they’ve helped us with volunteers. We’ve had so much support from the local community in terms of people who are grateful for what we have done.
Sheffield City region is a great place to grow a business because…
Again, because the resources are there for finding support and local people want to help local people. It’s also not difficult to find the support in Sheffield.
The best advice I ever got was…
We were never actually given any advice, we just got on with it. The only advice we were given was from VAS and we couldn’t manage without them.
The organisations that have supported me and my business include…
VAS have been immensely helpful, as well as The Star. We have other good friends who are always there every time we have done a run. My mum and dad have been absolutely wonderful – they’ve been to every event in all weathers and helped us marshal the races.
The main challenges facing my industry/sector are…
The biggest challenge we have found is marketing which we knew nothing about, so it has been a massive year-long learning curve. I’m not an expert but bit by bit we have found our way learning what works and what doesn’t.
In 5 years’ time I expect my business to…
I would love to have a race that involved a road closure. I don’t ever want us to get too big as I always want us to retain that nice, friendly, community feel and not lose who we are. But I would like to get a little bit bigger from where we are now – it is just finding the time to do that as I work part-time and run another little business.
