Can we please start by reiterating how grateful we are to all of our supporters – thank you for everything you’ve done to allow us to continue to provide much needed support to bereaved families and children.
We wanted to take this opportunity to give you a brief update on what we’ve been getting up to and how you can get involved in supporting Child Bereavement UK. Your support means so much to us and is more important now than ever. Now, onto our update!
#Donate4Dads Campaign
For the first time in five years, the Cheshire team are unable to host our annual Dash4Dad event – celebrating and remembering Dad’s in the North West. However, we didn’t want to lose the opportunity for you and everyone else who supports this community led event to not have the opportunity to support Child Bereavement UK. That being said, on Friday Child Bereavement UK launched it’s first Father’s Day campaign – Donate4Dads. We are nominating you to get involved and show your support! Getting involved is simple –
- Share 4 images or memories on social media of your father or any other father-figure you would like to celebrate or remember. You can use any social media platform, from Facebook and Instagram through to Tik-Tok. Please remember to tag Child Bereavement UK and use the hashtag #Donate4Dads.
- Donate £4 to help Child Bereavement UK support bereaved children, parents and families. You can do so by visiting:www.childbereavementuk.org/Event/donate4dads
- Nominate 4 other people to do the same and spread awareness of the support Child Bereavement UK provides to bereaved families and children across the UK.
We are hoping that this online campaign will not only raise vital funds for Child Bereavement UK, but also spread awareness of the support we provide.
Cheshire Service
The team are continuing to offer support to all families that want to access support by phone, video and instant messenger. They have been hosting group zoom calls for the Group 4 Young People over the past couple of weeks, which have been a great opportunity for 16 of our young people to come together. They are looking to host these sessions every two weeks.
Sophie – one of Cheshire’s bereavement practitioners is currently raising money for Child Bereavement UK. She has set herself three challenges based on how much she raises. If she raises £1,000 she’s promised to dye her hair a crazy colour, and if she raises between £1,000 to £3,000 she has vowed to have her first ever tattoo which will be a picture of a rainbow. If she raises over £3000 she will go for a complete head shave!
“Altering my appearance is something a little bit different and outside of my comfort zone so I hope it will raise awareness of the charity, and encourage people to donate some money too,” says Sophie. “I’m very proud to work for Child Bereavement UK in Cheshire. The pandemic has been particularly difficult for bereaved families who may find themselves cut off from their regular support networks, increasing feelings of loneliness. It’s a difficult time for bereaved families and sadly we expect demand for support to increase. Child Bereavement UK provides a lifeline to bereaved children, young people, parents and families in Cheshire and we are very grateful to everyone who can support us at this time”.
To support Sophie and her fundraising you can donate to her fundraising page: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/sophie-cartwrightcbuk.
Child Bereavement UK’s Covid-19 update
During the current period, Child Bereavement UK wants to assure you that we are not leaving families unsupported and are continuing to run a quality core service to support both families and professionals. Our National Helpline and Live chat are operating as usual from 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday, as well as our email support service, for both families and professionals.
Volunteer Week
It was recently #VolunteersWeek and although this year we won’t be dancing with our volunteers in fields or standing next to them whilst doing a bucket collection, we can’t thank them enough for the support they have provided Child Bereavement UK over the years. Without our incredible volunteers, we wouldn’t be able to raise vital funds and spread awareness on the support we provide to bereaved families and children across the UK.
How you can help and get involved
Although we are realistic that the financial challenge is significant for the charity, we have responded quickly and adapted our fundraising activities to mitigate this where possible. There are several ways you can get involved and support Child Bereavement UK. We have created a whole list of different fundraising ideas and activities which can be done in and around the house for you all to have a look at. You can find these here: https://www.childbereavementuk.org/fundraising-at-home.
Fundraising Highlights April-May 2020
Let’s Rock- Lockdown Festival – Due to the outbreak of Covid-19 and the cancellation of the Let’s Rock events across the UK – organisers of the festival worked closely with Child Bereavement UK to put on it’s first virtual event- Let’s Rock, the Lockdown Festival. We were blown away by the support the 80’s Lockdown festival had, raising over £130,000 for Child Bereavement UK on one evening! For those who tuned in and donated, thank you!
Trek Kilimanjaro….From Home! – At the beginning of April, Child Bereavement UK launched our first virtual challenge event- Trek Kilimanjaro from home. The challenge was set to bring families together during these hard times and challenge people to Trek to the summit of Kilimanjaro from the comfort of their home. We had over 120 families and individuals take part in this challenge raising over £8,000!
2.6 Challenge – Due to the postponement of many challenge events this year, organisers came together to challenge the nation in taking part in the 2.6 Challenge campaign. The campaign was to challenge individuals and raise as much money as possible for the charity sector during the coronavirus pandemic. Our 35 London Marathon runners took part as well as receiving direct donations and had people challenging themselves to raise as much money as they can for Child Bereavement UK- which resulted raising over £10,000.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
We can’t thank you enough for your continued support.