By Louise (mother of Charlotte, age 2 yrs)
As fliers were distributed to family, friends, neighbours and school book bags, I began to worry my love of quiz nights was not shared by the masses. But during the weeks that followed, there was a steady stream of requests for tickets and more often than not, for full tables of eight.
In total we sold 125 tickets – a number way beyond our expectations… and enough to make me thoroughly nervous about the whole thing. Had I booked the right kind of catering? Was the quiz too long? Too short? Was the hall big enough? What was I going to say about CMN? Would I suddenly start crying?! I needn’t have worried. After all the organising and fretting – and an enormous amount of help from those around us – the night was fantastic.
The lady who devised and hosted the quiz – a good friend and neighbour, who herself had a single CMN on her face as a child – was brilliant. And the raffle was a storming success. Among the prizes donated by friends and family members were Burberry scarves and umbrellas, a brand new child’s bike and a Boots hamper worth £100. We sold 2,300 raffle tickets in the hall that evening. I almost ran out!
Everyone I spoke to was hugely supportive and more than happy to dig deep.
On the quiz night itself, we made a profit of £2,200. But what has amazed us even more, has been the additional personal and corporate donations that have rolled in since that night and have increased our final figure to £4,400.
My brother’s employer – a bank in the City – were able to double a large proportion of the money raised, through their corporate charity scheme. And Charlotte’s godmother, who works for a big accountancy firm, applied to their corporate responsibility programme and they donated another £500.
Neighbours from across the street who were unable to attend the quiz night, suddenly appeared on our doorstep with cheques.
This snowball effect has been staggering. People really are willing to go that extra mile and ‘pull together’ for a good cause. And we are delighted to give this money to Caring Matters Now – especially at a time when Dr Kinsler is turning her attention to potential treatments.
I hope one day our daughter Charlotte will be proud of us – just as we are proud of her.