Fundraising
Reports



Leeds, England registered UK Charity No.1087961
Kingsport, USA charitable non-profit # 86-0957704
Oradea, Romania registered Charity No.14839712

 
...making smiles in Romania





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Fundraising Reports

A wonderful amount of fund-raising going on for Smiles  - somewhere just about every day. This makes such a difference to what The Smiles Foundation can do in Romania, because to fulfill our dreams and maintain our projects, we need your help in raising the financial support to keep it moving.

In June, Strathaven Gymnastics Club held a fun day to raise money for JFL Phase 2. Nail painting, hair braiding, tuck shop, guess the bear’s birthday, airtrack, parachute games and more were enjoyed by the 100 gymnasts in the club.
Coach Lindsay McKinlay, who was been to Romania on several occasions, held a raffle, with the winning two ticket holders getting to cut her hair! 14 inch pigtails were chopped off and donated to a wig-making charity for children. The sponsor money from the haircut and the money raised at the fun day totalled £1,100. In addition, lots of clothes were donated for taking to Romania. Massive thank you to everyone at the club who gave so generously and especially to the coaches and acro team for their help on the day and their on-going support of the work Lindsay does in Romania.




Straidbilly Primary School
chose Smiles as one of two of their Charities this year. Their challenge from Barbara was to raise money for Gepiu Summer Camp. The school of 114 pupils held a Christmas Carol Service, a Zumba Class and entered an Education Young Enterprise Competition to launch a business venture. They produced Bird Feeders, made their product and had a school sale for their Charities. On Friday 30th May at their School Assembly Barbara was presented with a Cheque for £1016.55. Congratulations Straidbilly for your successful fundraising and support to Smiles this




Open House & Garden Party
at the home of Mrs Campbell, Ballybogey, Ballymoney with her son John and grand daughter Jenny. A beautiful Garden display and a beautiful sunny day, many enjoyed a time to relax, have tea and cakes, and a chat.


Car Boot Sale at Mountsandle Christian Centre, Coleraine where the income from the Table Rental and proceeds from the Tea and Coffee Room as well as our own Sale tables brought a very successful day out.


Coffee Day at the home of Andrew + Barbara Brown.

This was a very interesting and well supported day with attractions for everyone, including second hand clothes sale, cake
& pastry sale, manicure, foot spa and massage (for some, relaxing after the work was done of course!)




Ayrshire
Fiddle Orchestra is a teenage orchestra.  They are raising funds at the moment to take the young people on tour. Many of the young people were playing for the first time in public they agreed to split the Ticket money between themselves and The Smiles Foundation and so  2 very worthy causes were supported. About 120 folk came along to support the evening and  raised over £600, £300 for each Charity.


Lynda Donaldson from Carlisle, leads a double life, becoming Peppa Pig for parties to raise money for The Smiles Foundation. Lynda is one of our original supporters of the charity, and ORIGINAL is definately what she is for this piece of fundraising! She also did a sponsored bike ride as Peppa Pig!!
11 year old Lily from Pembroke in Wales decided she wanted to do something for SMILES, so she got sponsors and walked 11 miles with her Mum from Milford Haven to Pembroke to raise money. £265 for the Joint Facility of Live in Salonta. Thank you Lily.


Christabell Wilson
, Mum to our Leeds Administrator Dawn, celebrated her 70th Birthday in December and requested donations for Smiles in lieu of presents. She was also thrilled that the total could be doubled by the Matching Gift, meaning her birthday raised over £800 for Smiles.
(Thanks Mum!).

The Troon Fun Run for Smiles The first prize of the 3 mile run was a Mini for the day, donated by Monty’s Car hire of Troon.
This was won by Lewis Brown. Scott Cowan was second and Alex Benson was third. Total money raised is  still being collecting, but it should be in excess of £500 for Joint Facility of Love.


Chris & Pat Calow have now completed the Pembrokeshire Coastal Walk raising over £1000 for the Vision Project.
Read their report and enjoy the
wonderful photographs.
 

13 year old Luke Revie from Troon, Scotland climbed Kilimanjaro sharing the proceeds between The Smiles Foundation and two other charities, with over £500 for Smiles 100 Club.
An amazing achievement!
(check out the report from our Northern Irish Team who also did the climb this summer!).


Karen Evans
from Gloucester organised a Charity Boat Trip with the Willow Trust to raise funds for Smiles.

Jennie Hoy (daughter of our CEO) completed the Reading Half Marathon raising over £500 for Smiles and was also very pleased to come 8,151st out of 18,000 runners. 'not bad for a first timer' was her quote - does that mean you are doing it again Jen?

Fourtowns Primary School had a collection at their Carol Service and raised £1,007 for The Smiles Foundation. The choir have been to Fourtowns a couple of times before when they were in Northern Ireland.
Flower Arranging at Catshill. The evening was a great success and raised an amazing £2,030.00 for the Smiles Foundation’s Centre for Children with Disabilities in Romania.    Many thanks to Virginia, Diana and all who attended and helped to make it such a memorable evening.


Barclay Kennedy representing the Smiles Foundation!  £1,500 was the money raised when we took a stand at the Moira Model Farm Exhibition, Northern Ireland


 

 
Maureen Climbs Up The Wall!
On September 11th 2010 Maureen Gartland successfully tackled the ‘
Three Wall Challenge’ at the Staveley Centre for Healthy Living. This tremendous achievement was all in support of the Smiles 200 Hundred Love Club’s drive to build a centre for children with disabilities and a home for the elderly in Bihor county in NW Romania.
Maureen has already collected £500 in sponsorship - and if anyone still wishes to donate they can do so!

Maureen climbed three walls on that memorable Saturday, each one harder than the one before. The photographs say it all. Chris, the Centre’s young Outdoor Pursuits Leader, was absolutely amazed at the courage and determination of this wonderfully lady.
When she first walked through the door, supported by her two sticks, telling him how she battles with MS, I think he wondered what he had let himself in for! Now he wants to know more about the Foundation that inspired her.

Maureen wants to say a very big ‘Thank you” to all who supported her through prayer, encouragement and sponsorship.

 


In Training...... for Kilimanjaro
Currently there are 16 people interested in going to Kilimanjaro next Summer. A few photos from the first practice expedition for the Kilimanjaro trip! The team were blessed with a beautiful day and the 6 inches of snow arrived in the area the next day! It was really beautiful in the Mourne Mountains. Brian McKee (Trustee)  led the first trip on a relatively easy route to Lough Shannagh and then a bit of a climb to the top of Doan mountain. The next trip is in April when more people are free to join. Please contact Penny Kennedy for further information.
 


School Fundraisers ...

In February pupils of Stewarton Academy presented our Scottish DA, Ann Cowan with their fundraising cheque for nearly £700. Thank you and well done to everyone.


FLOWER ARRANGING ENTERTAINMENT
“CANDLELIGHT SOIREE”

On Wednesday 11th November at Catshill Baptist Church, local ladies Virginia Davis and Diana Kitely (as Rose and Hyacinth) entertained an audience of one hundred and fifty ladies with a Flower Arranging Demonstration entitled “Candlelight Soiree”.

A wonderful evening was enjoyed by all present and raised £2,000 ($3,200) for The Smiles Foundation, towards the provision of a Centre for Children with Disabilities in Cihei, Romania. Some ladies were able to take home the lovely flower arrangements made during this superb evening.

We are extremely grateful to Virginia and Diane for their support and do thank all who came along and helped to make this evening such a tremendous success. We also thank Karen Bales of Burcot Grange Nursing Home for providing the refreshment of tea, coffee and delicious home made cakes!

Joan and John Mayo
Smiles Ambassadors (Bromsgrove)

The entertainment was based on the classic UK TV series "Keeping Up Appearances", also shown in the US on PBS television.

the lady with the hat and colourful jacket" is Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Bouquet) aka Diana Kiteley; the other lady is "Hyacinth's sister Rose" aka Virginia Davis.


Fundraising at Ingatestone Elim Church

Three months ago, our three, 9 year old grandchildren were enjoying an afternoon blackberry picking in the garden with Granddad.

During a drinks break, they looked at my photographs of the summer Mission Trip and were obviously very moved by a photograph of a house in Salard. They could not believe that anybody could live in those conditions, especially as there were children there too. I explained that our summer Mission team had promised to raise money to re-house the family, and their immediate response was “Nana, we could sell the Blackberries in Church”. This was the beginning of their enterprise! We sold cakes, blackberries, tomatoes, in fact anything that people donated went!

Our small church was very generous and this resulted in the children raising £300 for the re-housing project and a further £210 for Christmas S.O.S.

They want to continue to sell and people have come to look to buy from us, so we will continue once a month to have their ‘Stall’ and the money will go towards our Summer Missions Trip donation.

Marcia Weeks
Smiles Ambassador (Essex)

 


Mission Trips, especially through the summer, are great for being able to raise important funds for the work of Smiles projects throughout the year. Often up to £50,000 / $100,000 is raised by Mission Trip visitors and others back home during June, July & August. That’s 10% of our entire operating budget for the year from summer Mission trips.

Many people find coming on a Mission trip, a great opportunity to do special events to raise extra funds for Smiles and we appreciate all that is done by so many to raise so much to make such a difference.

This summer we’ve got off to a great start.

The Special Gift Day Offering at the opening celebration service on Sunday June 8th at Tileagd Community Church totalled £11,789 / $23,578 which is truly fantastic. We thank God for His provision and those who so generously gave to launch the work of the Community Complex.

Tileagd Church Congregation



 

We also have the stunning new 12 month Calendar for Smiles. A beautiful new fundraising tool, with over 80 full colour photographs and every Smiles project featured month by month. A super personal calendar and also a wonderful gift. At £5 / $10 this fundraiser can contribute significant funds to the projects with your support.

Contact us now to order your personal copy and supplies to sell locally.
Telephone: UK - 0113 276 5060 or  USA - 423 239 9525
E-mail: info@thesmilesfoundation.org

Many others have also been doing some great fund-raising. First Baptist Leesburg raised over $4,000 (£2,000) towards Mission Trip projects.

Claire Smyth, Skydive

Claire Smyth of Northern Ireland did a Skydive in April and raised £1,000 ($2,000) for Smiles.

Hilary and David Kent of Great Ayton, England raised a £1,000 ($2,000) for Smiles in lieu of their Wedding Anniversary.

Considerable funds were raised in the Belfast marathon last month along with further funds from Fiona Presho who held a birthday party with an ‘allo-allo’ theme with gifts to Smiles instead of presents.

Every day we are informed of more fund-raising activities and all of them, big and small are crucially important for the work of Smiles to keep growing and impacting lives in Romania.

Belfast Marathon BBQ

Allo, Allo Party

Thank you for all the plans and events going on right now and for the weeks ahead.

 

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    Page last updated on 15/07/2014 10:32:14 AM
   by ADMIN1

  

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