February 2025 Newsletter - Flipbook - Page 11
bedroom and wet room. There is a ramp to the front
door, but the family soon found it was a struggle to get
his equipment into the back garden and dreamed of
Thomas being able to access the rear garden directly
from his bedroom using his gait trainer.
run a marathon but I just don’t have that in me so all the
donations have been from our local community being
so kind and so lovely”. Caroline continued “Putting up
the Just Giving page was hard for me as I hate asking
for help but everyone pulled together and made it so
much easier. We got a lovely donation from a book club
who gave us their money that they got together over
the year to give to a charity and then we had a donation
of £85 from someone I don’t even know who I believe
used the QR code on the poster Tree of Hope provided
for me.
I emailed a local IT company when our fundraiser was
at £3,400, who very generously matched-funded this
amount despite having no personal connection to us.”
Local charities also supported the campaign – a truly
community effort.
Caroline explains “Research around Social Horticultural
Therapy (SHT) demonstrates the importance of access
to gardens and plants to support health and wellbeing.
I know this will be true for Thomas. Along with the
therapeutic aspect being able to access the garden in
his gait trainer will provide much needed physio for his
legs and improve his muscle tone.”
Despite having never fundraised before, a serious
lack of time due to Thomas’ care needs and being a
昀椀nal year OT student, Caroline started a fundraising
campaign for Thomas with Tree of Hope in September
2024. Caroline explained “I was aware of Tree of Hope
after seeing another local family fundraise for their
accessible garden several years ago. I knew we had to
source funding for the garden as it was too big a project
to ask an individual charity to support. I felt that using
Tree of Hope would give piece of mind both to me and
our donors and had seen it done successfully before
so it literally gave me hope that we could achieve the
same!”.
Word of the campaign quickly spread within the
Whitstable community where the family are wellknown and the donations quickly came 昀氀ooding in. The
response was amazing and the family had achieved
their target of £10,000 just three and a half months
later.
Caroline explained “Everyone has been so generous. I
really wanted to do something like have a quiz night or
Caroline had the following advice for other parents
considering starting fundraising for their child saying
“Go for it, don’t be shy to ask for help, especially if
this is the 昀椀rst time you have done anything like this.
I have asked charities directly several times before,
but never the wider community.” She went on to say
“Raising funds through Tree of Hope gave me and my
funders piece of mind. Families like ours have enough
to do without the added stress of managing the money
and I believe it gives the public more con昀椀dence to
donate more. It’s not always about 昀椀nancial donations,
I approached a local building supply 昀椀rm, who are
donating 10 tonne of sub base, so consider what to ask
for, as this is nearly £500 worth of building materials.
I’d recommend approaching smaller companies as the
bigger ones are so inundated with requests.”
Social media also played an important role in the
success of the campaign. Caroline used Instagram
(carolinemumfor1) and Facebook (Caroline Mumford)
to keep donors up to date on the campaign alongside
an initial video on Youtube which helped kick start the
campaign as it explained exactly what the family were
asking for and why.
Tree of Hope are delighted to have supported Thomas
and his family with such a successful campaign and are
hoping for a sunny summer so Thomas can enjoy his
new found freedom!
www.treeofhope.org.uk/thomas-garden-project
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