A YORK dad and his team have between them scaled Mount Snowdon ten times in 24 hours - the equivalent of scaling Everest in an epic fundraising challenge.
Sid Gornall, who lives in Holgate, is determined to fundraise after his son was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of a life-limiting illness.
As The Press has previously reported, his son Bill, who is now 12 and goes to Manor CE School, was diagnosed with mitochondrial disease MELAS in 2020, a rare disorder that begins in childhood and mostly affects the nervous system and muscles.
It is a degenerative condition affecting the mitochondria in your cells which provide 90 per cent of the energy for them to perform properly. If the mitochondria are unable to produce energy for the cell it dies and the organ the cell is supporting can fail.
In his latest challenge Sid was part of a five-strong team - along with his manager, Dave Measom, Danny Adams and Tom Bissett who are all from York and John Marshall - another Mito dad from Lancaster, whose daughter, Ruby, has mitochondrial disease - who ran The Snowdonia 24hr Ultra Challenge.
Sid, a project manager at events company Frame and Tailor, said: "I think the Snowdonia challenge was a really good way of bringing other people into the fundraising.
"In the end I don't think it could have gone any better - how hard is it going to be to run up a mountain and back down and do it again within 24 hours?"
Soon after diagnosis Bill and the family were forwarded the details of The Lily Foundation, the UK's leading mitochondrial disease charity and the largest charitable funder of mitochondrial research in Europe and to date the family and their friends have raised tens of thousands of pounds for the charity with the current fundraising total standing at £4,650 for this one event and £65,000 in total since they started fundraising.
"I’m also signed up to run The Chicago Marathon in October for an American Mitochondrial charity and I’m just in the process of finalising arrangements for a 20 mile sponsored walk which includes 20 pubs," said Sid.
Last year Sid was recognised in the Community Pride Awards and named Charity Fundraiser of the Year for his work.
Speaking to The Press in 2023 Sid explained that Bill, was struggling to walk any distance and needed a wheelchair to get around. After fundraising for a powered wheelchair, he said Bill is now doing really well at school.
To follow the family's story further go to their JustGiving page here and on Instagram @bills_mito_battle
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