Sophie Smith – Turning Heartbreak into Hope
Very few people will, thankfully, ever have to face the level of grief that Sophie Smith has. In 2006, Sophie and her husband Ash discovered that they were pregnant with triplets. In Sophie’s words, they felt like ‘the luckiest people in the world.’
Unfortunately, their triplet boys Henry, Evan and Jasper were born prematurely and despite incredible efforts to save them, they couldn’t overcome their prematurity. Henry lived for one hour, Evan lived for ten days and Jasper lived for 58 days.
In the depths of unimaginable grief, Sophie and Ash decided to channel their heartbreak into something positive and established a running group to raise some money for equipment for the very neonatal unit where they said goodbye to their boys.
On their first run they smashed their fundraising target of $20,000 – raising over $80,000 for four humidicribs and Running for Premature Babies was born.
Fast forward just 13 years later and Running for Premature Babies is a registered Australian Charity and has raised over $3.5 million for life saving equipment for premature babies in neonatal units across Australia.
This episode is an inspiring journey of heartbreak and hope and what’s possible when the most unimaginable grief is into something bigger than the story.
