COVID-19
How we’ve adapted and worked safely throughout the Covid-19 Pandemic and beyond
Things were hard for everyone throughout 2020 which meant we were unable to fundraise in our usual manner, thankfully we were lucky enough to hold three bucket collections at Tesco stores in January and February raising £1,000 before the restrictions came into place. We managed to arrange two online raffles but fortunately we have some great supporters and kicking off 2020 we had nine year old Frankie’s head shave that netted over £5,000 and we are so grateful to the family for taking on all the obstacles along the way and allowing their young daughter to help others in this way as she desperately wanted to. Frankie’s hair was donated afterwards to The Little Princess Trust so it was even more special and worthwhile.
We also received some big donations from various organisations who wanted to help. Our village charity shop donated almost £5,000, the Co-op Community Fund raised almost £2,000 for us, McCardle Properties Ltd. Kindly donated £2,000 and £6,000 was donated anonymously.
In addition to the larger donations we received many smaller but much appreciated donations from local supporters and volunteers who wanted to help and raised extra cash for us with socially distanced and virtual events, some even giving up their
lockdown Christmas and Birthday monies to benefit our cause.
We were awarded £2,500 from the Coronavirus Emergency Fund that helped immensely with our work and allowed us to purchase a specially adapted pushchair so a little girl suffering from neuroblastoma could go out with her family while they were on their daily exercise.
Although we had some money coming in, requests for help are always great but the pandemic has brought its own set of challenges for everyone especially for those self- isolating. We sent gifts to children who were housebound and in-between lockdowns and with restrictions in place we also managed to send quite a few families to our holiday homes and we even sent little Charlie on a special wish to Alton Towers Hotel to meet the Teletubbies
Raising cash for our new holiday home has been seriously impacted but we really need to get back on track as the lease on our existing two homes will expire in 2023. This is a worrying time for us as fundraising is still difficult.
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Sadly the annual trips to Disneyland Paris did not go ahead in 2020 or 2021 and we are not sure when we can resume these special breaks, so for the time being we are taking children to see Disney musicals and pantomimes instead. The first theatre trip was to see The Lion King in London in summer 2021 followed later in the year with a Christmas Pantomime.
Coronavirus is going to be with us for quite some time and the repercussions following it are ongoing both in well-being and financially, we need to support our families more than ever, anything you can donate towards our cause will be gratefully received and really will make a difference.
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Thank you from Elaine, Trevor and Karen – Charity Trustees.
