The Children’s Cancer run is now in its 26th year, and to date has raised in excess of £3 million for Children’s Cancer Research in the UK. It started when a young boy called Chris from the North East was diagnosed with cancer of the kidney and given a 30% chance of survival. His school headmaster, Colin Gregg, a member of the Greggs bakery family, found out about Chris and set up a fund-raising run to help children who were in a similar situation. Chris made a full recovery and since then has taken part in the run every year and is also a member of the Run Committee.

The company covers most of the expenses of the run, and volunteers from the bakery work hard to provide free lunches for over 10,000 participants each year. This allows all the money raised by the runners to go to the charity.

Newcastle was initially the only venue for the Children’s Cancer Run, and this has proved to be a hugely popular and successful annual event. Since 2003, a similar run has been held in Manchester and with the continued expansion and growth of Greggs, other divisions are putting plans in place to host fun run days in their regions in the forthcoming years.

The following runs are being held in 2008. To find out more about these runs, contact the relevant organising division.

We welcome as many runners as possible to allow us to raise as much money as we can for this very deserving cause. You’ll find the day a fun and healthy experience and it has the obvious benefit of helping others less fortunate than ourselves.