Fundraising

School Cup for Community fundraising






 Richards Wish
Family Fun Day

James and I (pre speech!)

Pimms and my a few of my lovely friends

Vintage Stitch
Raising money for CLIC since before Christmas with the Betsy Owl.
So far has raised hundreds of pounds.

Face Painting

Family and friends

James, Lucy and I


Fundraising.

From our first week in Exeter where I met our CLIC social worker, I knew fundraising would be a big part of our journey.   My friends had organised a cake sale which had raised over £3000 and had also signed up to do the commando challenge.  When our CLIC social worker mentioned a named fund, I set this up for CLIC.  It was nice to be able to add gorgeous photographs and updates on Elizabeth’s treatment.  It also passed the time while in hospital.  To date Elizabeth has raised £5075.  We have kept it has a fund in her memory so that people can choose which charity to give to. I hope to do events to mark certain milestones.

We were very fortunate to have support from so many charities over the course of Elizabeth’s treatment and her relapse.  The firefighter’s charity helped give us somewhere close to the hospital to stay and have some family time in Chudleigh.  Promised Dreams gave us money towards our trip to Disneyland Paris. Richard’s Wish (a local charity based in Dawlish) granted all the children a wish (Kindles to use when stuck in hospital with us) and invited us to their annual Christmas party where we had dinner and the children all received a present from Santa.  The Royal Agricultural Fund (RAB) also helped us financially.  CLIC was obviously a big part of our journey too, providing nurses to come out to our house to collect blood and help administer the GCSF in the early days.

When Elizabeth relapsed CLIC again supported us as well as the Grace Kelly Ladybird Trust and the Harvey Hext Trust.  Little Bridge Hospice also played a major part in lives from this point on.  We knew after only a few days there that we had to give something back.  The work they do is amazing, and they still help us now, nearly 5 months on.

`Only a few weeks after Elizabeth had died I started to focus on a family fun day…there was talk of a charity bike ride but everyone who knows me knows that is not really my thing!  We chose to hold the event on the farm and picked a date.  Straight away people started to come forward to help me and the event grew and grew.  I had an old school friend help to design an amazing poster and other friends put their names down to oversee some of the stalls; Pimm’s, BBQ, the raffle, the bar, cakes, toys, books cream tea, tombola and selling my books and Betsy’s owls.  We also managed to secure a band to play. 

Planning the event kept me very busy over the next couple of months, sourcing donations for the raffle, cake stall, tombola and cream tea, meat and rolls for the BBQ and alcohol for the bar.  I also spent a lot of time making and laminating posters for the day too.  I also spent some time setting up the Facebook page; Biff’s Battle, this helped me to keep everyone updated with developments for the day.  From this page we also received so many donations for the raffle.  There were so many amazing prizes and this helped to raise over £2500 on the raffle alone!

The page was not just set up for the fun day though, it is nice to be able to share photos of our time in the hospice and I hope through sharing these things we can also raise awareness of childhood cancer symptoms.  It was also a great platform to help sell my book which I published in time for the fun day.

The fun day on the 15th July 2018 was a great success and raised over £4000 for Biff’s Battle (Grace Kelly Ladybird Trust) and Little Bridge Children’s’ Hospice.  I now turn my attentions to another fundraiser which is sure to involve cake and a raffle!  Ella is also keen to contribute to our efforts and has started to frame some of her watercolour paintings ready to sell.  I have not found I have been any less busy since the fun day planning either.  I have now started to distribute the awareness cards to schools, children’s centres, doctors and pre schools as well as trying to sell my book.  Back to work next week so not sure how I will juggle it all!

Even if the charity events don’t raise much money my main aim is to raise awareness of the symptoms.

www.gracekellyladyybird.co.uk/biffs-battle

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