A MAN is running over 1,500 miles to help get medical supplies over to Ukraine.
Anthony Seddon and his wife Anna, from Dnipro, Ukraine, are on a mission to help those who are unable to flee the conflict with much-needed supplies.
Anthony, 40, who is a lifelong Albion fan, has agreed to complete a sponsored run of the distance between the Amex stadium and Anna’s local football club’s stadium in Dnipro.
The total is 1,569 miles and he will be running it 10K at a time for however long it takes.
Anthony said: “We just knew we had to do something. She’s holding it together but this is awful for Anna.
“We decided to live here but we could have easily stayed in her home country instead.
“We would have been caught up in all of this.”
Anthony and Anna, who was a local journalist, met in 2012 when he and his friends travelled across Europe in a campervan to watch the Euros.
A chance meeting when the vehicle broke down led to several back and forth visits between Sussex and Dnipro.
Within 15 months the two were married and moved to Portslade to start a family, they now have two daughters called Gabriella and Arlia.
Anna’s mother and brother still live in Dnipro and have been devastated by the conflict.
Her mother has been granted to come over to the UK to live with them due to Anna’s own citizenship here.
However, her brother, his wife and their 2-year-old son are left in the war torn city.
Anthony said he chose to run this specific distance in honour of how he and Anna met.
He said: “We wanted to keep it football themed because that’s why we met and I’m a Albion season ticket holder so it tied in nicely.
“We watched her local team play one of the times I visited her, the club has folded now but the stadium is still there so we felt it tied in nicely.”
He is asking people to sponsor him on his mighty run, with the money raised going towards the cost of transporting the medical supplies to the Polish border.
Anthony and his friend will be driving a van every three weeks to the border where Anna’s friend will meet them and get the supplies across to Lviv in western Ukraine where they will then go on to where they are most needed.
Anthony, who is also training to be a train driver, will be running 10Ks and eventually half and full marathons, on the weekends that he is not travelling to Poland.
His first trip to Poland is on Thursday and his first run is on Sunday.
Anthony has already raised over £4,000 in donations and the owner of Hove running shop Run, Kurt Hoyte, has donated a new pair of trainers to aid his mission.
To donate to Anthony and Anna’s fundraiser visit: www.gofundme.com/f/run2ukraine
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