I want to talk about M.E Awareness day and how proud I am of myself and Team Princess for what we achieved.
M.E Awareness day/week/month is always emotional. It's exhausting when you try to do your bit to raise awareness of this truly awful condition but when you decide to fundraise too (crazy some may say!) you know you are going to be as pooped as a pooped thing for a good while after.
Considering it was my birthday 3 days before Awareness day - the day Team Princess was doing our thing - I was already slightly wiped out before we'd even started! However, it is obviously something very important to me. I had written a status to warn people I would be posting lots on the day but to be honest if they didn't like it then tough! People who know me and know what my life is like support me (or so you would think!) so that was my thinking. Plus I would be raising as much money and awareness as I could. How can that ever be a bad thing?
The charity I chose to support is such a fantastic one so I wanted to push it as much as possible. Smile for ME, if you haven't read my previous post, send parcels of gifts to M.E sufferers and carers who have been nominated by friends or family. It is run by 2 girls who are both M.E sufferers and they rely on donations. Random acts of Kindness are a big part of my life and I love sending stuff to people, so I wanted to raise as much as I could for them to enable them to send lots of Smile parcels.
Before the event had even started I'd somehow managed to raise a big chunk of money and I very kindly received a large donation on my birthday which took me to my £300 target. It gave me a massive boost but then I panicked I wouldn't raise much more!!
My first post of the day was very personal and stated my reasons for joining Team Princess. I will share a copy of it below for you to read. I had a lot of comments and likes, which to me was as important as raising money as it meant people had (hopefully) read what I had written.
I posted various pictures throughout the day across my social media and I couldn't keep up with the notifications of donations at one point. I was a bit overwhelmed and every single pound donated, as well as every comment or message, meant so much to me. As always, there was a bit of disappointment from some but on the whole I was blown away with people's generosity and kindness.
I also ran an auction the following weekend with prizes that had been donated by some of my favourite independent businesses. That went really well too. I really am grateful for everyone's support.
The total raised was £879.88 including gift aid. Amazing! I received some messages from Smile for ME which made my heart so happy. Knowing how much the money was going to make a real difference made me feel so fuzzy and it's the reason I pushed so much for donations. Every single person who donated I want you to know that you really have made a difference. You have helped towards putting a huge smile on a very deserving person's face. I appreciate it so much.
Team Princess managed to raise £3436.95 for various M.E charities so I couldn't be prouder. I'd like to also thank our Queenie Sian for organising everything so well and for all the support. We couldn't do it without her!
I can't stress enough what a brilliant thing it is that Smile for ME do. M.E is very isolating so receiving a parcel literally does make a huge difference to people's lives. If you wanted to make a donation to them, you can do here here.
Thank you to everyone who is there for me, who continue to support me and for all your kindness with my fundraiser. If I could give you all a big sparkly hug I would do!
Ali
xx
Post a Comment