A Coventry man is marking a milestone birthday year by walking coast to coast in support of a project to build classrooms in Zambia.

Canon Gavin Kibble MBE hopes to raise £60k for Feed The Hungry as he completes the 200-mile trek across England, in May.

The route, between St Bees Head in Lancashire and Robin Hood Bay in Yorkshire, traverses three national parks and is expected to take 13 days.

It will be a particularly significant challenge for Gavin who, two years ago, suffered a heart attack while shopping in his local supermarket.

He said: “The shopping had not been a particularly pleasant experience because I found myself stopping at the end of each aisle trying to catch my breath. I got home and my wife said are you OK? I said I probably just need to go to bed because I’m exhausted and she wanted to call 111. When they heard the symptoms they said I needed to get straight to the hospital. Within an hour I was on an ECG and it transpired I was having a heart attack which took me by surprise.”

Since his recovery he has been following a new diet and fitness regime as part of a Coventry University Research Study Group, which, he says, has left him ‘feeling about ten years younger.’

Gavin, who founded Coventry Foodbank 13 years ago, became Projects Director of Feed The Hungry when the two charities merged in 2021.

He said: “There’s something about turning sixty this month that is quite difficult to articulate. Last year my wife Vivienne and I decided that we would try and do 60 significant things around our 60th birthdays and the Coast to Coast walk has always been high on my ‘to-do’ list.”

“In 2019 I visited a school in Mazabuka in Zambia, which caters for children orphaned by the impact of the AIDS pandemic. Feed The Hungry provides regular meals for these children but that’s not enough. They need an education and to do that we need classrooms. The charity has been supporting the school since 2016, helping to pay for teaching staff, equipment and food.

“They also require a functioning IT suite to provide IT lessons for their children. It’s a lot of money to ask for from the local community, so the money raised from my walk will contribute in part to supporting them to pay for building new classrooms as well as desks, chairs and computer equipment.”

“So I’ve set myself a challenge that this year I will try and raise £60,000 to help change the lives of these children by walking across England. Please partner with me on this amazing adventure by sponsoring each mile or each leg of this walk.”

Corporate sponsors have been promised plenty of exposure, including the addition of their company logo on a sponsorship plaque on the new building.

For more information or to get in touch about sponsoring a section of the walk, email gavin.kibble@feedthehungry.org.uk or call 01455 618 455. For more information visit: feedthehungry.org.uk/coast-to-coast