Hi Sunshine News readers,
We hope you are well. Last week, our Strategic Partnerships Officer, Rachel, and our Family Co-ordinator, Bev, met with SEND Voice Newcastle to discuss how we can develop and encourage the voices of our Sunshine Children. This gave them the opportunity to advise us and work in collaboration to make our information and application process more accessible and easier to use for older children who want to submit their own applications for equipment.
Rachel also attended the Connected Voice Funding Fair alongside our Charity Director, Siobhan, which gave us the opportunity to talk about our charity to potential funders. The Sunshine Fund is a small charity that funds specialist and adapted equipment that isn’t available through the NHS or social services to babies, children and young adults across the North East region.
We receive no statutory funding from the government or local authorities, which means we can only fund equipment that our Sunshine Children are patiently but desperately waiting for when we receive donations. We rely solely on the generosity of individuals and organisations to continue our work and achieve our mission of enriching the daily lives of local disabled children, as the demand for equipment remains high.
There are many ways people can support our charity; by attending our fundraising events, organising their own fundraisers for us, or by simply donating either through our website, by cheque or by bank transfer. Find out more at www.thesunshinefund.org/donate.
One easy, low-cost way of supporting us is through our weekly lottery, where you also have the chance to win something in return! Our weekly lottery is through One Lottery, it costs just £1 per ticket, and half of this goes directly to The Sunshine Fund.
Each week, you’ll be in with a chance of winning the national prize of £25,000, as well as a local prize pot and monthly bonus prizes. Anybody who purchases tickets from now until Saturday 29th July has the opportunity to win this month’s bonus prize which is a £500 John Lewis gift card!
Once you’ve registered, you can manage how many tickets you play each week, set up and change your direct debit and should you wish to, you can cancel at any time. Playing our weekly lottery means that we generate regular, sustainable funding to enable us to continue to help our community thrive.
Winners have the option of keeping their prize or donating back to the charity. Whether you play 1 ticket or 10, we can’t thank you enough for your support! Here’s what some of our lottery players have said: “I've been lucky enough to win TCSF lottery THREE times now since I started playing back in September 2020. Its a great way of supporting local children with disabilities in our region and a bonus when you win!”
“I was so surprised to win, I never win anything! I decided to donate my winnings back to the charity because I know how hard the team work to support local families and every donation counts”.
Alternatively, our text-to-give service allows you to make a one-off donation or set up regular, monthly donations from your phone. To make a one-off donation of £5, simply text SUNSHINE 5 to 70085, or to set up a monthly payment of £5, text EQUIPMENT 5 to 70085. You can change the number to anything from 2 – 20 to make a smaller or larger donation!
A special message from our charity patrons, Ant and Dec:
We understand that for many people, money is tight at the moment, but there are plenty of ways people can support us at no cost, too. For example, following our social media and sharing our posts goes a long way to grow our audience and get our message out to as many people in the region as possible.
You can find us on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok (@sunshinefund), as well as LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.
Another cost-free way of supporting us is by volunteering your time and skills at our events. You can find out more and join our volunteers mailing list at www.thesunshinefund.org/volunteer.
Thank you for reading - speak soon!
Sophie X
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