A COUPLE invited the community to ‘breakfast with Santa’ — as part of their fundraising ahead of next year’s London Marathon.

Matt and Sam Allan from Camelford are training for the marathon, which will take place in April, and will run in aid of FLEET — a local charity, which provides equipment to the emergency services in Cornwall.

As part of their fundraising plan they arranged an instant sell-out ‘Breakfast With Santa’ at the town’s Souls Harbour — an event where friends, family and local residents could bring their children to enjoy breakfast in the presence of Santa, followed by fun and games.

This proved so popular they arranged an afternoon ‘Hot Cocoa and Cake With Santa’ the same afternoon to cope with demand!

Matt said: “Sam and I ran a little last summer, but gave up during the winter months. After Christmas a friend of ours invited us to enter the Plymouth Half Marathon in April. Apprehensively agreeing to enter, we set to train and as Camelford has no running club we set up our very own and popular Facebook group ‘Camelford Up And Running’, a friendly group which invites like minded people to run together.

“Over this past year our running has grown from strength to strength and we have entered a couple of half marathons and other races. We always share our runs on our Facebook group and towards the end of summer we caught the attention of family friend and founder of FLEET Norman Trebilcock, who very kindly offered Sam and I places in this coming year’s London Marathon — a dream come true for any serious runner!

“Sam and I are now training for the endurance needed to run for 26 miles. We’ve currently not ran further than 16 miles but feel confident in our ability to improve.

“We are now fundraising for FLEET and have many more plans which will be sure to catch the attention of our friends and family again to raise more money for this fantastic charity. If anyone would like to sponsor please visit www.justgiving.com/fundraising/MattandSamAllan”

Matt and Sam expressed their thanks to all who supported the Santa events, which took place on Saturday, December 10, and to the Spar shop in Camelford for kindly donating the bread, their baker friends for baking the cakes, minced pies and biscuits, and a family friend for donating the bacon.

They also expressed thanks to friends for helping them on the day, Debbie for helping to plan this event and giving up so much time on the day, to Ada McCormick and Santa for giving up their day, and Souls Harbour Church for the venue.

The events raised £410 and £40 in sponsorship money throughout the day.