Published on 24 August 2023

News round-up – July

This month has been extremely hectic at Ormiston Families. Both our paid staff and our incredible volunteers have done outstanding work in strengthening our services.

Get in touch with us if you want to learn more about our services or join our team as a volunteer.

The Ormiston Families Stars team pose with a giant cuddly toy

Ormiston Familes, Stars (child bereavement charity), Charlotte Burnett, Paula Thexton counsellor, Ann-Marie McKiernan and Melanie Chaplin. Picture: Keith Heppell

We’re close to the £6,000 mark for our Shining Stars appeal

We’re working incredibly hard to bolster our fundraising appeal, and this month we came close to the £6,000 mark.

We’d like to thank the Cambridge Independent for its continued support. By sharing powerful stories of our Shining Stars bereavement service and explaining how we’re working, we’re able to explain to our local communities what we do and why our services are so beneficial.

Our Shining Stars appeal currently stands at £5,875 and we’d love to give it a bit more of a boost. So why not head over to our Just Giving appeal account and add your donation.

Participants in the Sea to Summit challenge pose with an Ormiston Families banner

K-9 power through Sea to Summit

July saw the Sea to Summit challenge, which took place on the 7-8 July.

This was a monumental achievement from the team, who took on a 14km bike ride around Snowdonia, a hike to the summit of Mt Snowden and a 2mile kayak around Llyn Padarn!

The group of 16 supporters made a huge difference to our coffers, raising almost £5,000! That’s a huge amount of money and we are incredibly grateful – and impressed by their achievements!

If you want to get involved in our fundraising efforts, why not head over to our Events page to see what we have coming up?

Two children pose proudly in front of their school with the Ormiston Families logo above them.

#WeWill ambassadors celebrated at awards event

Our amazing #WeWill project may have ended, but we were proud to be able to celebrate our Wellbeing Ambassadors this month.

The ambassadors were invited to attend a special prizegiving ceremony which took place in Birmingham on July 11. They joined other volunteers from across the UK and had the opportunity to be recognised for their hard work and amazing efforts.

Our own #WeWill team had nominated a number of our Wellbeing Ambassadors and projects and we were so pleased to take three winners with us! It’s really important to us that we can recognise our supporter in this way. We couldn’t achieve a fraction of the services that we deliver without their support, so any opportunities that we have to boast about their efforts is widely welcomed!

One of our Wellbeing Ambassadors from Hillside Primary School won ‘Exceptional Personal Development’ as we had watched him transform through his social action work.

During the event, we were also able to premier our #WeWill video. This particular video featured a number of the ambassadors in starring roles.

You can watch the film on Facebook here.

Has this inspired you to get involved?

To keep doing what we’re doing in the East of England, we need your help.

Please get in touch if you’d like to contribute in any way, whether financially or through volunteer work.

New volunteers are always welcome to assist with ongoing events, and we’ll welcome you with open arms whether you can provide regular voluntary support, or just ad hoc help.

We are always interested in hearing your ideas for future initiatives that will further our mission of making our communities safer, healthier, and more resilient. If you’ve got a great fundraising idea, then why not let us know? We’re always open to new ideas!

The smallest action, like following us on social media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter), can go a long way toward raising awareness for our cause.

Once again, thank you for all of your support this month.