Macmillan Fundraiser

It's been a few weeks since I hosted my fundraising event for Macmillan Cancer Support so I thought it would be great to share a little about the evening and to let everyone know how much we raised.

The reason why we decided to arrange a fundraiser was ultimately in memory of my uncle Bob who died 19 years ago from cancer. He died just before my first birthday so I never had the chance to get to know him. With all the stories i've been told about him and the videos i've seen of him I feel proud to call him my uncle yet sad as he was taken way too early by such a horrible disease. My mum told me that throughout his illness he recieved so much support and care from the Macmillan nurses.


Uncle Bob

A few months back after seeing some advertisements from Macmillan about their 'World's biggest coffee morning ' I thought it would be a great idea to hold a coffee morning of my own to raise a bit of money in support of Macmillan so I sent off for the fundraising pack and the planning began.
Even after 19 years, it's never too late and we wanted to do our bit to give thanks for the wonderful work that Macmillan Cancer Support do. Everyone knows someone that has been affected by cancer in one way or another and in hosting a fundraiser it enabled us to get together to celebrate the lives of those we've lost, to remember them as well as raise money so that the support that Macmillan provide can continue.

 My mum and I decided that because we were hosting it at our house that it would be best to make it an invitation only event. We then realised that most of the people we wanted to invite work during the day so it would be difficult to pull off a coffee morning, so for that reason we changed it from coffee morning to a wine evening. We didn't want it too crammed so we sent out invites to about 35 knowing that a few may not be able to make it. We only invited girls as we just wanted a chilled out evening, with some wine, nibbles, chatting, a bit of music and a girly raffle which was full of wines, candles, beauty sets, chocolates, vouchers and champagne which were all kindly bought and donated by my mum. Some friends kindly donated a few bits and my nan knitted a gorgeous baby blanket too.

As well as the raffle we also had a little game on the go which you usually see at school fetes and fairs... "Guess how many sweets are in the jar", everyone paid for a guess and the closest guess without going over won a voucher and a bottle of prosecco.

All of the money we made from the night has been given to Macmillan and we didn't take anything for the drink, food or raffle that we provided, every single penny that we received went straight into the donation box. We were so pleased with the turn out and with how much people were willing to kindly donate, my mum and I are already looking forward to doing it again next year. We are so thankful to everyone who came to the evening to help us raise as much as we could as well as to the people who didn't come yet still gave us a donation.

Altogether I had hoped to raise about £200. I was amazed at how much we actually raised,
on the actual evening we raised an incredible £406 but with two generous donations from my dad and his friends companies we managed to raise an amazing £606! Thats over three times as much as I had hoped to raise. Even though it may only be a little amount compared to what they need, but with the amount of coffee mornings and fundraisers that are held, every penny that is donated helps Macmillan to carry on providing their much needed cancer support to those in need.

So that's it.. until next year!
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