When it comes to fundraising very often the simplest ideas can be very effective – and a lot of fun. Here Fia, mum to eight year old Toni, who has biliary atresia, tells how she helped her friend, Vicky’s fundraising this summer.
“Vicky does a lot of fundraising for CLDF. She does running and cycling events, for which people donate online, as well as cake sales at home. I think this is a great idea because not everyone has a computer to donate but we all know how to eat cake!
When Vicky said she was doing Prudential Ride 100 for CLDF, I wanted to help her reach her £575 fundraising target so I approached Andy, the landlord of our local pub to see if he would provide some raffle prizes for a fundraising evening. It was Andy who suggested that we held the event at his pub!
He offered us his beer garden and gazebo free of charge and said we could sell what we like. He even provided us his barbeque and a staff member to operate.
He offered us a good deal on burgers, we baked our own home cookies, cakes and muffins, and a local greengrocer gave us a good price on strawberries. It’s always worth asking for a deal or a discount when you say you are planning a charity event. If you don’t ask you don’t get!
We used CLDF’s bunting and balloons as decoration and this was a good way of getting the children involved.
It was a really fun afternoon, we had around 35 guests and raised over £340 towards Vicky’s sponsorship total.
I would definitely recommend an event at your local pub as a fundraiser. It can save a lot of work in planning an event and its’ something I would do again. One piece of advice I would give to others doing the same is to check other events before you fix your date. We found out that it was our local town’s party in the park on the same day so we might have got more people attending had we opted for a different day – a lesson learned for next time.
Vicky did brilliantly on her cycle ride – 100 miles in the heat but she really enjoyed it. I’m just pleased that we made such a contribution to her total – and had a fun afternoon while doing so.
