This Mother’s Day the Starr Trust Celebrates the Lives of Three Amazing Mums!

All mums are amazing! – we know that – but as Mothering Sunday fast approaches we would like to give a very special shout out to 3 mums in particular:

• Claire Clements
• Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson
• Kim Freeman

Claire is mum to one of our champions Hannah. She helped her daughter overcome an incredibly tough time at school. She reached out to us and supported Hannah with a new passion - kayaking and rafting. Since taking up these sports Hannah has turned her life around, so much so that she came back from Dubai recently with 5 medals for Team GB! Claire is now a Volunteer with us and her continued support (and cakes!) are legendary.Kim is another amazing mum whose son Nathan was born with cerebral palsy and who approached us for help with paying for a racing wheelchair for him. Kim managed to get Nathan into a brilliant school and we even heard his dulcet tones on BBC Radio Sussex recently. He absolutely loves chair racing and says it makes him feel like he is running. His dream is to take part in the Paralympics.These two mums met at our annual ‘Celebration Night’ last year and as a result, Claire reached out to her friend, a third amazing mum – Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, Crossbench Life Peer in the House of Lords and Paralympian.Tanni has amassed a remarkable medal haul over 16 years with five Paralympic Games of 11 gold medals, 4 silver and a bronze and continues to be involved in sport; she is a Board Member of the London Marathon, the Sportsaid Foundation, Transport for London, and many more.Claire arranged for Nathan to meet Tanni and her husband Ian to give him some inspirational training on his wheelchair racing. The meeting was a huge success for everyone.Tanni told us “It’s lovely to meet a young man who has so much drive and enthusiasm for the sport, and so willing to listen to advice. He obviously spends a lot of time watching wheelchair racing on the internet which is a great way to learn about who is in the sport and how they compete. I really hope that he continues to enjoy the sport and I can’t wait to see him compete this season”.Kim shared this with us “We’re really grateful to Claire, Hannah and The Starr Trust for making the meeting happen. Nathan learnt so much from Tanni and her husband Ian, not just about the technical elements of wheelchair racing, but also practical tips and encouragement. We were really grateful for the amount of time Tanni & Ian spent with us and Nath left feeling really inspired to train harder and work on the elements they had advised”.Happy Mother’s Day to brilliant mums everywhere making great things happen!