‘Emma’s Village’ to Raise Thousands at the Auckland Marathon After Their Friend Suffers Debilitating Stroke
Kaukapakapa’s Katrina Shaw is part of ‘Emma’s Village’, a group of friends preparing to take on 21.1km’s at the 2022 Barfoot & Thompson Auckland Marathon to raise funds for their friend Emma and her whānau.
On 30 October, Katrina and a group of four other women will run and walk through the streets of Auckland and across the iconic Harbour Bridge with the aim of raising $10,000.
The group decided to take on the half marathon after their friend and mum of three Emma suffered a major stroke in March, causing her to lose full mobility of the right side of her body and suffer severe speech difficulty.
Seven months on, Emma is undergoing intensive speech therapy to learn to talk again, as well as regular physiotherapy sessions to help her regain mobility.
Feeling somewhat helpless and wanting to do more for her friend in need, Katrina decided she might be able to put her running to good use and asked a group of Emma’s friends if they wanted to do the same – run 21.1kms at the Auckland Marathon to raise money to help their friend.
“Initially I was feeling like I wasn’t doing enough, and how can I help. I run semi regularly but decided maybe I can get some sponsorship, so I put it to her friends and about four or five of them said ‘we’re in’. There was initially 13 of us but a few of them have said they were nowhere near able to do a half marathon but still wanted to help in whatever way they could,” said Katrina.
“There’s about five of us that are actually doing it, and we’ve all got to know her over the years whether it’s been through work or through netball or from when she was having her children, through mum’s groups, so there’s a variety of different ways we know each other and that we’ve got to know her, but she’s one of these people that adopts her friends as part and parcel of her family.”
Katrina says Emma is someone who would do anything to help others in need, something she has experienced first-hand.
“I arrived here in New Zealand fresh from the UK 18 years ago, I was a single mum with three young kids coming out of a nasty relationship, and she completely adopted me and my kids. Her and her husband could not do enough to help me become strong again. I had family around me but having a friend as well was so powerful for me, to help me become me again,” she said.
With Emma unable to work for the foreseeable future, and her husband recently giving up his job to look after Emma fulltime, Katrina and her friends are hoping that the funds they raise through running and walking the Auckland Half Marathon will help ease the financial pressure on the family as they navigate life through the coming months.
“Our fundraising goal is $10,000. We’re nearly halfway there which is amazing. We’d just like to be able to get it to our target. If we can pass that target that would be amazing,” said Katrina.
“That amount was kind of what we thought was a stretch target, just to try and see if we could raise that because then it gives the family that little bit of breathing room during this period of time.”
Out of the group taking on the half marathon, only Katrina has completed the 21.1km distance before – and that was back in 2009. Katrina anticipates that crossing the finish line will be a mixture of emotion and elation for the women as the enormity of what they have achieved sinks in.
“I think there will be a few tears, good tears, because we’ll have done it, but also just that feeling of actually doing something which is good for somebody else,” said Katrina.
“Every single one of us has been in a situation where Emma has helped each of us in one way or another in the past. You’ve just got to look after your own when the chips are down,” she said.
