Staff member to run marathon with a powerful message

Worth’s Head of Performance Mr Tom Wilkinson will be taking part in the 2025 London Marathon to highlight how running can help people's mental health, as well as raising money for school charity Mary’s Meals.

Mr Wilkinson is a strong believer that running and general fitness can help people’s mental wellbeing and that is his main motivation in deciding to run the London Marathon.

He said: “My life and career has been surrounded by sport but the deeper reason I started running was down to the mental health side of things. In the COVID period when I was at university, I went from being a high-performance athlete, getting scholarships and being a semi-professional footballer to nothing and I needed to find a new way to deal with my emotions, so I started running.

“Over the space of two to three years since then, this will be my third marathon (Amsterdam, Florence and London 2025) and in that time, I have covered thousands of kilometres. I say to people, getting out the door is the hardest thing to do.

“I find running and going to the gym is my cure. It is a great way to control my emotions. It is good to get outside, give yourself time to think about why we live and what we live for. When I am running through forests or through town centres, I look around and think this is the world we live in. You can take yourself to a place where you can be in your own thoughts which can be really important and make you realise you have a lot more than others do.

“I want to get the message out there of why I run. People see me as a young member of staff, bubbly and positive but people don’t see everything. It is okay for people to feel down or lonely sometimes, but the key is doing something about it.”

That is something Mr Wilkinson has a mission to help with. He continued: “It is okay to speak up about things. I want students to be aware that teachers are approachable, and you can talk to us about these sort of things. The first thing I say when a student comes to the gym, is ‘How are you?’, ‘How do you feel?’, then I will tailor a session to them. That is important.”

Worth has long had an association with Mary’s Meals, a charity which runs programme in countries across the globe where poverty and hunger often prevent children from gaining an education. By providing children with one meal every day they attend school, the charity offers young people hope and, through education, a possible route out of poverty.

It costs £19.15 to feed a child for a whole school year. Thanks to the generosity of the Worth community, we have provided meals for every child at the Farsee Korma Public School in Liberia every day they attend school since 2017.

Mr Wilkinson will be raising money for Mary’s Meals when he runs the London Marathon and you can sponsor him here: https://www.justgiving.com/page/worth-school-marys-meals

He said: “Being able to raise awareness for mental health as well as being able to raise money for Mary’s Meals is powerful. Being on a run makes you feel how lucky you are.”

During half term, Mr Wilkinson ran the Carsington Water 10km, coming third on a difficult course, and a 5km in Greenwich Park in London, coming third again in a competitive field. He is pictured with his medal from Greenwich Park.