Twelve fundraising friends have raised thousands of pounds for John Taylor Hospice. They first came together over 15 years ago as a fundraising parent-teacher association (PTA) called the Friends of Little Sutton School. Fast forward over a decade and they decided to renew their flair for fundraising by creating Charity Chums.
One of the chums, Debbie Veitch, said: “We had so much fun together in the PTA group and we just gelled as firm friends. We decided that we wanted to start fundraising together as a group again so in 2014 we did just that – and called ourselves Charity Chums.
“Each year we pick a cause to raise cash for. In our first year we fundraised for Breast Cancer Now and this year we chose John Taylor Hospice.”
Raising valuable funds for the Birmingham-based hospice holds special meaning to Debbie, as staff there cared for her father Ray Crook in 2012.
“I think John Taylor Hospice is absolutely amazing,” said Debbie, from Sutton Coldfield. “We are a small but very close family and they were fantastic to us. They gave us so much support.”
The dedicated dozen have raised £4,000 for the hospice thanks to a tabletop sale, charity horse racing evening and a garden party. They also donned their walking gear to take on the 25km Long Mynd hike through the Shropshire Hills.
Katie Mitchell, head of fundraising at John Taylor Hospice, said: “We’d like to say a massive thank you to Charity Chums for choosing to support us over the last year. They’ve raised an incredible amount of money that will make such a difference to patients and their families.”
