World's Biggest Coffee Morning

A Crafty Coffee met as usual and clever Crafty remembered that it was the Macmillan World's Biggest Coffee morning and made Macmillan mugs for people to put donations in. We raised £33 which was great as it was an improptu fundraiser. Well done people!

The other big news of the morning was something that Crafty, P (the manager of Trago) and I have had up our sleeves for a little while. As those of you who are regular readers of the blog and/or regulars at ACC will know, my oldest son is currently having treatment for Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. He has his treatment at the Piam Brown children's cancer ward at Southampton General Hospital.

Well, drum roll please...... A Crafty Coffee and Trago Lounge would like to announce that on Friday 5th November 2010 between 10am and 1pm we will be holding A Crafty Sale in aid of the Piam Brown ward and CLIC Sargent (the children's cancer and leukaemia charity). So, everyone, please getting knitting, crocheting, sewing, making and crafting in order for us to have loads of beautiful items to sell for these two charities. And if you can't craft anything, come and buy. And invite everyone you know!

From a personal point of view, the money raised for the ward and for CLIC makes such a difference to the children and the families on the ward. The money that the ward makes pays for extra equipment that the ward needs as well as treats for the children, which is vital for creating 'happy' memories for the families at a terrible time in their lives. And CLIC do so much for families of children diagnosed with cancer. One thing they do locally is provide a house for families to live in while the children are being treated on the ward. Many of the families come from miles and miles away to receive this specialist treatment and families would be separated if CLIC didn't provide this house. One family I can think of in particular on the ward, where the mum is on her own, would be in a terrible situation if they didn't have this option, with the child with cancer having to be left on her own on the ward while the mum took care of her other child. This way they can all be together.

I am not going to apologise for trying to pull on your heart strings in this post. Having a child with cancer, not knowing what the outcome is going to be for your beautiful child or all the other wonderful, brave children on the ward is heartbreaking. And if I can do anything to get people to part with their cash, in order to make things a tiny bit better for the other families who will have to go through this, I will.

So, get crafting. And come and buy!

Lots of love, Coffee xxx

PS A huge 'thank you' to Crafty (Dee) who is making this event happen, and who has been the most enormous source of comfort and strength to me in the past few months. E xxx

PPS I (Crafty) am fully behind Emma in this project and agree that we should make no apology for pulling on heart strings in this post. We have been going through this together like sisters, the pain is enormous but I am thrilled to be able to contribute something, no matter how small, to make difference to these children and their families. Fundraising is a particular forté of mine so let's hope we pull off a massive event.