I am so proud to have been chosen to help at the kick off event at Ronald Macdonald House in Manchester for Stampin’ Up!’s Christmas Cheer Challenge this past Friday.
Demonstrators and customers gathered together this weekend to make Christmas cards for the families of sick children who are hospitalised over and are staying at Ronald MacDonald Houses over Christmas around the UK. The Christmas cards mean that families who wouldn’t be able to get out to buy cards will be able to send cards to friends and family, bringing a little normality and cheer to what is a very difficult and stressful time. Surplus cards will be sold and funds raise will go directly to Ronald Macdonald House Charities too.
I travelled up to Manchester on Thursday ready to kick off our Christmas Cheer Challenge Weekend on Friday. Six demonstrators names were drawn to take part and we were challenged to make 100 cards each during the course of the day.
Getting ready for a full day of card making ahead.
Our event was set up in the board room of Manchester’s Ronald Macdonald House. We had face book live’s broadcast from the event throughout the day, reporting on our progress and competitions for viewers too!
Setting up in the Board Room for our event. This room is always booked out and proceeds go back into the charity.
Being made very festive! Do you recognise the paper in the paper chains.
Our lovely UK manager Paula and
Kelly hard at work setting the stage before the event.
Each demonstrator was given the task before the event to design their Christmas card. Given the challenge to make 100 each in a short space of time it needed to be simple enough to achieve but also pretty too!
This was my design. I made it in a few colour ways.
And here is Nikki with hers too.
At 10.25 promptly we started the event with our first Face Book live broadcast. We had more of these throughout the day with updates on our progress and competitions too!
Hard at work!
Growing box of cards!
We were treated to a tour of the House and were able to see first hand the amazing work Ronald Macdonald House Charities do to help families when they most desperately need it. Families whose children are hospitalised in the specialised children’s hospital around the country are very often miles away from home and the cost for parents to stay nearby would be prohibitive if it weren’t for the facilities of Ronald Macdonald House.
We were given some interesting facts about the House. It has 5 floors and 60 rooms. There is a telephone in each room which has a direct line to the children’s ward.
These posters are on the walls at various locations throughout.
Manchester House’s Giving Tree. A tag is hung on each of the branches to show sponsors who have sponsored a room this year.
Each family are given a kitchen cupboard during their stay for dry storage. They also have their own space in the fridge too
This large kitchen area has a roomy dining area on the other side with window view.
There is a games room for older children. Lots of the equipment is donated.
A local artist painted the wall mural
One of the beautiful rooms for the little ones. It has an under water scene carpet too!
These facilities are used by siblings who so often have to spend so much time at Ronald MacDonald house too!
The rooms are always occupied and turned as soon as empty. There is a 40 family wait list at any one time. The average length of stay is 27 days but could be as long as 2 years!
They rely entirely upon charitable donations.
Our goal between the 8 of us was to make 800 cards! We started at 10.30, we were given a tour of the house and we also stopped for lunch and Face Book live’s too! I am so happy to say that we exceeded our goal and our final count at 4pm was 920 cards! Woo Hoo! We did it!
Feeling accomplished!
I had an amazing day and feel very lucky to be have been able to take part in the kick off event to help this awesome charity that is very close to my heart.
Stampin’ Up! planned two weekend events this year to make cards, the Birthday Wishes Event in the Summer and the Christmas Cheer Challenge. We had a target to reach across both the events of 10,000 cards. Due to some amazing efforts by Stampin’ Up! demonstrators in the summer we reached the 10,000 card goal in just that first weekend event! So what did we do?! We double our goal for the year to 20,000 of course!
Over the course of the weekend my news feed on social media was completely filled with events and awesome challenges that other demonstrators and their customers are holding UK wide to achieve our goal. I have been awed at he efforts and I am confident that our final goal of 10,000 this weekend will have been met. The count is still going on and its looking very positive. Watch this space to see if we did it!
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post. If there is anything you would like to do to help Ronald MacDonald House Charities do get in touch with your nearest House or contact http://www.rmhc.org.uk/. They would love to hear from you.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my post. If there is anything you would like to do to help Ronald MacDonald House Charities do get in touch with your nearest House or contact http://www.rmhc.org.uk/. They would love to hear from you.
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