A FANTASTIC figure of £2,149.09 was raised by the "Pink Army" for Cancer Research UK.

The team of nine ladies from the Crediton Tesco store at Wellparks returned their best fundraising total this year and are delighted by the amount that they managed to secure.

The ladies organised a "Pink Raffle", a "Guess the Name of the Bear" competition, various "Pink Days" where colleagues were encouraged to dress in pink for the day and, of course, competing in the actual Race for Life itself.

Emily Conner, from the Customer Service Team, who co-ordinated much of the activity in-store, was pleased with the positive reaction and interest of Tesco customers, saying, “We are so grateful to everyone that took part in the activities that we ran in the lead up to the race weekend.

"They got so involved in what we put on and we would never have achieved this brilliant total without them. Thank You to everyone who donated, joined in and contributed to it.”

A total of 19 Tesco ladies took part in the various Race for Life options during the weekend - four in the 10K, 14 in the 5K and one completing the Pretty Muddy course.

Checkout Operator Hayley Rice, who is also a member of the Crediton Running Network, was proud of the team that turned up for the races.

She said: “It always helps to have a good group doing events such as this, the camaraderie of the team gets you through the tougher bits and it’s a lovely feeling to celebrate all together when it’s all over.

“The sense of achievement is amazing. One of the things that we love about the Race for Life is it gives you the option to run in memory of someone which adds to the incentive to do your best and raise as much as possible so that someone else may benefit when they are in a difficult situation.”

Hayley continued: “The ‘Pink Army’ would like to thank each and every person that sponsored, and donated to our team. Suffering from cancer is an awful situation and too many people have experienced someone that they care for going through that, so when they donate to you, you are not only running for your reasons, you are representing someone else’s memories. The number of local people that provided us with that incentive was a real driving force and, again, we can’t thank them enough for helping raise this amount.”

For anyone that missed the events that went on or the opportunity to sponsor a runner, you can still donate at; https://www.fundraise.cancerresearch.org/team/crediton-tescos-pink-army .

The ladies that made up the “Pink Army” were:

5k - Ruby Redstone, Lyndsey Betts, Kirsty Redstone, Sarah Thomas, Clare Cann, Shannon May, Sue Hooper, Sophie Stocker, Amy Kemp, Claire Jefferies, Charlie Clark, Fiona Sladen, Hayley Rice and Katie Williams.

10k - Lisa Macmillan, Jan Wannacott, Maria Williams and Emma Peek.

Pretty Muddy - Jessica Fulcher.