A group of KPMG staff walked from their offices in Forbury Gardens to Beale Wildlife Park in memory of a meerkat-loving colleague. Sherri King from Tilehurst passed away suddenly at Easter, and her team was keen to commemorate their friend. 16 completed the sponsored walk – which took 4.5 hours in temperatures reaching nearly 30℃ – and have raised £2,670 so far. Sherri’s love of meerkats was legendary and she cited BBC documentary, Meerkat Manor, as her saviour during lockdown. Her colleague, Lucinda, said: “We wanted to support a personal and local project, which we know Sherri would have approved of. The meerkats at Beale Wildlife Park – a place where those of us with children have spent many happy days – seemed like the perfect choice. We will come back and visit regularly and remember Sherri.”
On arrival at Beale Wildlife Park, the KPMG group were taken to the meerkat enclosure and given the opportunity to learn more about the African animals from assistant curator, Paul Betchley. Some were even brave enough to hand feed them mealworms. Paul added: “We are very grateful for the generous donation, which is likely to be used to revamp the existing meerkat enclosure. We will fit a new gate that will allow easy and safe access, with a plaque in memory of Sherri. We are hopeful that our breeding pair of meerkats will produce some more pups soon and have promised to call the first female Sherri.”
The Just Giving link is still live at https://www.justgiving.com/fun…/kpmg-reading-bealeparkwalk and further donations are very welcome.
