Thank you to everyone who has been so generous in their donations for Christian Aid Week 2020. More than TWO THOUSAND POUNDS has been donated and every penny is going to help those in desperate need.
Special thanks to those who completed fund raising activities to replace the income from the normal house to house envelope donations - Roanna Pilsbury, Alison Dowsett, Rachel Barclay and Elspeth & Mike Haynes.
Here are the events & amounts raised:
Roanna Pilsbury - authored & illustrated a childrens' story book 'The Rainbow Spirit' which was available on line to download and raised £260.00
Alison Dowsett - discovered & photographed & published on Facebook more than 100 beautiful pictures of plants from the gardens and open spaces around Matlock raising £289.00
Rachel Barclay - bravely carried out and videoed challenges she received from her friends & published the videos on Facebook, no matter how unusual the challenge and raised £65.75
Elspeth Haynes - crocheted rainbow hairclips and key rings as well as animals, bowls, egg cosies and aliens and raised £114.67
Mike Haynes - ran 100 laps around two local football pitches and raised £1,381.50
Total raised £2110.92
It is evident that the majority of the amount raised has come from the incredible generosity of the congregation as well as the friends, family and contacts of the people named above. The Matlock community donations make up only a fraction of the total. Normally, the envelope house to house collection would raise around £1000.00 and the process facilitates a witness of Christian presence and love in our community to about 1,000 households. This information has been fed back to the Christian Aid Week organisation who acknowledged the issues and commented that their overall total raised in Christian Aid Week 2020 had been reduced by around 80% despite the fantastic efforts of many volunteers around the UK.
Our Christian Aid annual fund raising Barn Dance event is still planned for Saturday September 19th and we pray that there will be a way in which we can hold the event in a safe way to raise funds for those in need.