Phyll Babb, from Salisbury, set herself the challenge to raise money for the Salisbury Trust for the Homeless (STFH).
She has so far raised more than £8,000 for the charity, with an additional £1,000 to be added through Gift Aid.
Phyll, who will celebrate her 100th birthday on July 13, has now set herself a new target of 200 walks by her birthday.
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Phyll began her challenge in August last year and has been walking from her Salisbury home (Image: Salisbury Trust for the Homeless) She said: “I am amazed that I have been able to do it and I remember each walk I have made.
“I feel physically fitter as a result of doing this and also feel better mentally. It is a win-win situation.
“You get more out of doing voluntary work than you put in.”
Phyll began her challenge in August last year and has been walking from her Salisbury home, around the Cathedral Close, and back again using a Rollator aid.
Each walk is about one mile long and she has noticed her fitness level has steadily improved.
She said: “It has given me a reason to get out in the morning.”
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Phyll has been joined on her walks by many leading Salisbury citizens, including former Salisbury MP John Glen; Mayor of Salisbury Cllr Sven Hocking, former mayor John Walsh; the Very Reverend Nicholas Papadopulos, Dean of Salisbury; the Reverend Canon Edward Probert, Chancellor of Salisbury Cathedral; and Lord Margadale.
Others who have joined Phyll on her walks include a team from BBC, eight self-described ‘Welliwalkers’, a dentist’s wife who drove up from Blandford in Dorset, friends, neighbours, members of the University of the Third Age, and senior figures from the Bournemouth Churches Housing Association, the parent body of STFH.
Phyll, who has been keeping a log of her walks, said: “They have all been delightful company and everybody has a different story to tell.
“I have had a wide range of people and it has been lovely.”
Donors via JustGiving have included 10 former pupils of Edgehill College, Bideford, in north Devon, where Phyll was a teacher in the 1960s.
Gordon Pardy, head of fundraising for STFH, said: “We are so grateful to Phyll for undertaking this typically gutsy fundraising project in her 100th year.
“Our charity does not receive any financial support from central or local government and so we are very much dependent on the generosity of the public in Wiltshire and further afield.”
Phyll was born in Bideford, north Devon, and went to Exeter University before working as a teacher.
In 1949, she travelled by sea alone to Jamaica where she taught in a girl’s grammar school for three years.
After a brief spell in England, she took off again to Vancouver in western Canada before returning to the UK to look after her disabled mother.
Back home in Bideford, she carried on teaching, but was also a keen member of the local yacht club, becoming secretary and then Rear Commodore.
In 1986, she retired and the following year moved to Salisbury, where she became involved in a range of voluntary work – the Probation Service, Victim Support and U3A (University of the Third Age), for which she undertook senior roles at national level. She was placed on the U3A Roll of Honour.
She first became involved with STFH in 1998 and was chairman from 2004 to 2009.
To donate to Phyll’s JustGiving page, visit justgiving.com/page/phyll-babb-1722779310016.