Fundraising Update - June 2014

How my fundraising's been getting on so far 

My Handmade Xmas Cards

At the start of Selection the thought of raising £5900 for Project Trust seemed almost impossible but now thanks to family, friends and some very generous charitable trusts and businesses it's seemed all the more possible!

My first fundraising idea was to take full advantage of the festive spirits and sell Xmas cards at village fairs. Even though it's June now I'll still never forget how much time and effort this took- making Xmas cards is harder than you think! After ordering lots of material off eBay and visiting lots of crafty shops I decided to stick to five basic designs- all of which you can see in the picture. By the end of November I had made over 200 Christmas cards, most of which I sold at fêtes and some I sold in batches to family and friends, the biggest help I had along the way was that of my lovely twin sister- who was my card-making assistant and head candy cane maker. I even had some of my friends who offered to cut out Xmas tree templates for me at college lunch break which is real dedication when food is on offer!

All the Xmas fêtes went really well. The hardest time was selling them at the outdoors fêtes- as in December the weather was really not suited to stilling still and selling cards, but I had may generous people buy them and there were even some people who gave me hot drinks to help get me by.

The next challenge was writing to Charitable Trusts and local businesses to ask for sponsorship for my year abroad. This was probably one of the most useful experiences I have had in concern to fundraising as I could finally see my GCSE English letter writing skills come into play. I made sure that each letter I sent was accompanied with a leaflet which was a easier and less formal way to show companies what my teaching project was about. I had great fun making the leaflets and in the end ordered over 500!!

I also got busy making a Facebook page (www.facebook.com/alicesyearinhonduras) so my technology skills were definitely being but to the test. It now had over 100 views which I can hardly believe- I'm so happy with all the support :) 

After the Christmas period was over I started to get some really positive responses from charitable trusts and businesses- I'm so grateful of all the money donated and found it really good to see so many people interested. After attending a Project Trust coffee morning which offered further help with fundraising one of the returned volunteers also suggested that I did a sponsored event to gain extra funds. As a family we all agreed that something like the Three Peaks Challenge would be good as it would certainly be a challenge but hopefully something we could all achieve. Mum booked it quite early on with a guided company to ensure there was no getting lost on the mountains! The more we read up on the challenge the more daunting it seemed- we weren't quite sure what we'd got ourselves into!