As the festive period is upon us, I always feel like this time is one of giving back, both to friends and family on Christmas, but also back to the community as a whole. That's why I though today I would write a post about my favourite charities to give back to at this time of year.
If you read my post almost two years ago now about donating my hair to charity, you'll have read all about The Little Princess Trust, but just in case you didn't - The Little Princess Trust is a charity that accepts hair donations and turns them into wigs for children who have lost their hair due to illnesses such as cancer. They also accept donations and it takes on average about £350 to purchase a wig made from un-donated hair. In 2014, I cut off about 11" of hair and managed to raise £500 for the charity, and I've been growing my hair out ever since. If you'd asked me, I would probably have said that I wasn't interested in doing another hair donation but one night last week, I decided I wanted to give myself an impromptu haircut, and as the length I wanted to cut off was only an inch or two shorter than the minimum required for donation, I decided to just cut a little bit more and bob's your uncle!
I think The Little Princess Trust is such an amazing charity with a really unique focus that I think deserves a lot more recognition than it does get!
The next charity I wanted to mention is quite a topical one for this time of year and it's Operation Christmas Child. In case you haven't heard of them, they're a part of Samaritan's Purse which accept donations of shoeboxes full of toys and other gifts and send them to less fortunate children all around the world. I've been doing this most years since I was a child as it's a Christian charity and I've gone to Catholic school for most of my life, but I think it's easily one that you can participate in even if you don't want to join in the religious aspect of it. As a child, I really enjoyed going shopping for the gifts to put in the boxes and carefully tailoring them to the gender and age group for the box, so I really do think it's a charity that people of all ages can get involved with.
I think this is probably the charity that encouraged me to think of the Christmas period as one of giving not just to family and friends but to other people around the world too, and I am so grateful to have been brought up in a way that's encouraged me to give back.
The final charity I wanted to talk about is Mind. Whilst I've not personally done anything to fundraise for them in the past, they're definitely a charity that I am looking at working with in the future so if you have any unique fundraising ideas, let me know! In case you aren't aware, Mind are a charity that work towards helping people with mental health problems, led by president Stephen Fry. According to their website, 1 in 4 people in the UK will experience a mental health problem, so this is a charity that can do a great deal of help to a lot of us. Not only do they work to provide support and guidance to the people actually suffering, they also work with their loved ones to provide advice on how to help the person get through it.
I'm so grateful to live a fortunate life and think it's so important to give what you can back to your communities to support those of you who may not be in such a position, especially at this time of year, and it fills my heart with joy to hear about others doing the same.
What are your favourite charities to give back to? I'd love to hear about them!
What an amazing post! Thank you so much for this. I will be defiantly looking into these a bit more! x
ReplyDelete- Caitlin
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