This is a text-only version of an article first published on Wednesday, 15 May 2019. Information shown on this page may no longer be current.
A TEAM of swimmers from St John the Baptist Church in Cookham Dean challenged themselves to swim the distance of the Channel and back for charity. The group had six weeks to swim 44 miles, but rather than hit the sea, did it in their local swimming pools.
They were raising funds for the leprosy charity Lepra.
The swimming team.
Hannah Chamberlain The Revd Helen Chamberlain, associate priest at the Cookhams, said: "We set ourselves a fund raising target of £500 and time limit of six weeks to do the swimming.
We chose LEPRA as our charity because it reaches out to people of all faiths and none.
During the six weeks of the swim challenge two members of the group travelled to India and saw for themselves first-hand the devastating effects of leprosy.
When they returned home and shared the information it spurred us on to try even harder.
In the end we swam 110 miles and raised over £1,000 pounds. "