On June 6th 2015 with the help of family & friends, we decided to organise our 2nd Fundraising fun day. We had such a brilliant time last year we received such amazing support and raised a fantastic £1700. We also managed to raise awareness through local media by having the support of Nottingham Evening Post who came to meet Gareth and I last year and put Georgia’s story in the paper.
As parents of a child with this rare condition we were so pleased to have received the support we did and also be part of something which will help our beautiful daughter and other children like her.
We had never done anything like this before, we always try to be involved with charity fun runs etc. but had never organised our own fundraiser until now, I found the key is not to be afraid to ask! We set up a family Facebook page to raise some awareness initially which we update with all our fundraising details, as well as the latest information from Caring Matters Now.
Because of the success and importance of the continued support from parents, we decided to do it all again this year (only bigger & better)!! It was a lot of hard work and fairly time consuming contacting hundreds of companies for raffles prizes, booking activities, arranging food, seeking stalls, begging and borrowing but it`s worth every single minute when it all comes together on the day and you know what a difference raising awareness and money can make.
We booked the event at a local Welfare who had a huge field attached perfect for any fun day, as well as a Main Hall for all our stalls. We had as much as we could squeeze in this year from bouncy castles, runners, slides, hot dog vans, ice-cream vans, hook a duck game & many others, pony rides, mascots, the local police with two amazing demo cars, stalls indoors and out, fancy dress competition, a British bake off & sports races for all the family.
The sports events were brilliant and loved by every one of all ages, I think my little boy Ollie stuck the bean bag to his head he did very well it never moved!!
The weather was on our side and it just made it a perfect day of fun with family & friends, old and new. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the support of all my family and dear friends who manned stalls, ran games, served cakes, and basically ran around from 8am – 6pm doing anything that needed doing.
We have raised £1477.20 so far this year with donations still coming in, in addition to this the awareness has also encouraged the local college to support us with their own British bake off which raised £230, a family friend heard about what we were doing and Georgia`s condition so decided to nominate CMN at work (Go Compare) who kindly donated £1000. Family and friends are also already planning more ways to help us raise more money this year and next – it`s overwhelming.
A thoroughly enjoyable fun day, defiantly more to come.
Emma (CMN Mum)