Fundraising for Olympic hopeful Jo Willoughby

If you were passing through Har­ome on Fri­day 27^th Novem­ber you would be for­given for think­ing you were in the Alps, as The Star turned in to Mount Har­ome for the night.  The team had cre­ated an amaz­ing venue with ski equip­ment on tables and 40 tonnes of real snow shipped in for the event.

The even­ing star­ted with a great inter­view where Jo Wil­loughby explained to the gathered crowd of 147 sup­port­ers how she felt con­fid­ent that she would return from the Winter Olympics in Whist­ler with medals round her neck.  Most people have never heard of Jo Wil­loughby but she is the best hope Great Bri­tain has ever had of col­lect­ing Alpine Gold Medals, you see Jo is a bit dif­fer­ent para­lysed from the chest down by a child­hood ill­ness, Jo has no sen­sa­tion below neck and no move­ment below the chest.  Hav­ing had her left leg ampu­tated in May she has only re-started her train­ing in July after 4 months off the slopes through ill­ness and injury.  Des­pite this she is the best female sit­s­kier Great Bri­tain has ever had.

Drum­mond and Val Mur­ray rep­res­en­ted Café du Monde at the event and Val was lucky enough to sit next to Jo and found her SO inspir­ing and such a lovely per­son.  She dis­misses her dis­ab­il­ity com­pletely and says she’s just like any­one else!!! — nothing could be fur­ther from the truth.

With Andrew Pern a Mich­elin starred chef cook­ing for you and such an inspir­a­tional sports­wo­man to raise money for it is not sur­pris­ing that over £20,000 was col­lec­ted and Jo has had part of her dream real­ised.  If you would like to sup­port or fol­low Jo’s pro­gress her web site is www.jowilloughby.com

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