Martha's March to Long Bennington in memory of baby girl raises £20,000 for hospital room
Parents who walked the journey their premature baby daughter should have made had she survived have been left humbled and overwhelmed after smashing a fundraising target.
Adrian and Amanda Hallam were joined by more than 40 family and friends for Martha’s March of more than 20 miles from Nottingham City Hospital to their home in Long Bennington.
Martha was born at the hospital at 23 weeks and died six days later.
Following Saturday’s walk, which raised money for the hospital, dad Adrian said: “When the total ticked over our target we raised a glass to Martha and had a little sob.
“My dad had a good cry — something I have never really seen before — and that’s when it brought home how much it meant to all of us.
“It was a really good day. At times I had feared that it could become sombre at times, but it was an uplifting experience, to be there with everybody.
“Quite early on after Martha died, Amanda would go for a walk with the dog outside of the village so as to not see anyone.
“She came back one day with this as an idea. I felt in some ways I had to temper expectations. Bills were going up for everyone and wages weren’t necessarily following suit. People didn’t have too much money to spare.
“I would have said £5,000 would have been a good total. When it hit £10,000, I had a little cry but I didn’t think it would go beyond that because all of our friends and family had contributed, but then [their son] Henry’s school sent a message out to parents and the paper helped.
“To have now beaten our target is equally humbling and overwhelming.”
Adrian’s parents drove a support vehicle, which he describes as an Eighties tuck shop on wheels, but where everything was free, and Sharpe’s Coaches of Nottingham ferried everybody to the start line in a double-decker with ‘Martha’s March’ on the destination display.
Martha’s March raised money for the full refurbishment of the garden room at the neonatal intensive care unit at Nottingham City Hospital.
Adrian and Amanda had £18,104 to raise, but now have over £20,000.
The garden room was where Adrian and Amanda were given devastating news of their daughter’s condition.
Their mission is to make the room more friendly and less clinical.
The re-designed space will include a butterfly design that Amanda used in prints for earlier fundraising. It came about because when the couple arrived home after Martha’s tragic death in December, a little pink butterfly, highly unusual for the time of year, arrived in the house and followed Amanda around for five whole days. The design also includes Martha’s footprints.
Martha Marisa Hallam was born at 3.31pm on November 26, 2021, and died in her mother’s arms at 8.30am on December 2.
