The Lily Foundation logo featuring a butterfly, hearts and an 'x' for a kiss

Fighting mito,
finding hope.

Shining the spotlight on an inspirational Royal Parks runner

Personal stories

18 September 2023

Every summer the organisers of the Royal Parks Half Marathon launch their Inspire campaign, sponsored by Royal Bank of Canada, to seek out five inspirational runners, and this year one of their winners is Lily supporter Reanna!

A young women hold a baby, both looking at the camera and the woman is smiling

Reanna will be raising money for The Lily Foundation to help fund vital research into mitochondrial disease, which her daughter Milanna was diagnosed with at the age of 7 months.

After Milanna’s diagnosis, Reanna felt so powerless and poorly informed about the disease that she set about researching it herself, and that’s when she found out about The Lily Foundation and first talked to Liz.

Milanna’s mito diagnosis is still new to Reanna, and although she’s still coming to terms with it, she wants to learn everything she can about the disease and its prognosis, and tell as many people as possible about it so that one day everyone will have heard of it.

Reanna’s little girl has faced so many challenges in her short life already, and time and time again she’s shown her parents how courageous she is. Now, with race day rapidly approaching, it’s Mummy’s turn to be brave!

Read Reanna’s full story.

Coming soon...