Doughnut Sale Fundraiser

For the staff and students at Blackfen School for Girls - my next fundraiser in aid of Bravery Bottles is at the end of this month; 29th January. I’ll remind you again closer to the time, but put it in your diaries; I’d love to see you all there!

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This is just a huge “thank you” to everyone at Blackfen School who came to my doughnut sale last week, or donated some money, in aid of ‘Bravery Bottles’.

The support I always get when I hold an event at school is phenomenal - the students just want the food; completely understandable and relatable from charity events that were held when I was in their position! But combined with the staff who know me, or know of me through mum, or who are interested and willing to learn more me/what I do, the final result is always one that makes a huge difference to the project.

It’s really hard to gauge the amount of food to bring to a fundraiser - especially at school. You can’t ever tell how many girls will turn up, how many will want to buy what you’re selling, how many students bring money to school, whether they’ll still be hungry after only just having their lunch etc etc but, in general, at the end of each 50 minute event, there’s very little that hasn’t sold, but that’s after I’ve sent my loud-mouthed, known by everyone, scary, bossy mum round to sell whatever is left at a discounted price!

When I was buying the doughnuts this time I was completely stumped by how many to buy; trying to guess how many teenage girls would be interested in buying £1 doughnuts on their lunch ‘hour’ is harder than you’d think.. I was trying to work out in my head how many, realistically, I’d sell. My estimate? 100. Reality? Closer to 1000! This sale was by far the quickest I’ve ever held. In less than 15 minutes, I’d completely sold out, leaving a queue of girls doughnut-less and disappointed, but the ‘Bravery Bottles’ fund up by £140 - an incredible amount raised. 

This fundraiser taught me a couple of valuable lessons: 1) Doughnuts are VERY popular, but 2) they sell out VERY fast. So, in the future, I’ll regularly be having ‘doughnut sales’, the only difference being that I make sure I’m armed with a lot more than 100 doughnuts!

Christmas fundraiser 2017

On Monday 11th December, as you would have known if you see my posts regularly, I held a ‘Christmas Fundraiser’ at Blackfen School, all proceeds going towards starting off my ‘Bravery Bottles’ Project. 

As well as the food (cakes, cookies, biscuits, chocolate, lollies) which were for sale, I’d also spent the past few weeks making extra bits to sell, such as baubles, greeting cards, badges, reindeer food and other decorations. 

Altogether, I raised £200.50 which is absolutely incredible considering I only had just over half an hour ‘selling time’ during the lunch break, and I’m so grateful for the generosity of the staff and students at Blackfen. 

I’d also like to individually thank Mr Brown, for letting me hold the event at school in the first place, the caretakers for help with equipment etc., and Mrs Taylor for help with setting up and selling too; thank you all. 

A special thank you of course to my mummy, Mrs Keenan, for being her usual bossy self, which made everything, from the preparation at the very beginning, until leaving school after the event, and everything in the middle (including pushing me around school in a wheelchair), run as smoothly as it possibly could have done, and for being part of making the event the success it was. 

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On Monday 11th December, as you would have known if you see my posts regularly, I held a ‘Christmas Fundraiser’ at Blackfen School, all proceeds going towards starting off my ‘Bravery Bottles’ Project. 

As well as the food (cakes, cookies, biscuits, chocolate, lollies) which were for sale, I’d also spent the past few weeks making extra bits to sell, such as baubles, greeting cards, badges, reindeer food and other decorations. 

Altogether, I raised £200.50 which is absolutely incredible considering I only had just over half an hour ‘selling time’ during the lunch break, and I’m so grateful for the generosity of the staff and students at Blackfen. 

I’d also like to individually thank Mr Brown, for letting me hold the event at school in the first place, the caretakers for help with equipment etc., and Mrs Taylor for help with setting up and selling too; thank you all. 

A special thank you of course to my mummy, Mrs Keenan, for being her usual bossy self, which made everything, from the preparation at the very beginning, until leaving school after the event, and everything in the middle (including pushing me around school in a wheelchair), run as smoothly as it possibly could have done, and for being part of making the event the success it was. 

Welcome to Bravery Bottles!

‘Recognising and recording the individual bravery of those living with chronic illness, one bead at a time’

Welcome to Bravery Bottles!

What is the project about?

At the beginning of 2018 - nearly 6 years into living with chronic illness - I set up a positivity project for those who also have a chronic illness (be that physicsl, mental, emotional, or a combination). That project - Bravery Bottles - has has more interest  and success in the 6 months it’s been running than I ever imagined it’d get, and that’s shown in the sheer number of participants taking part today.   

If you don’t have a chronic illness, you wouldn’t believe the amount of people who class themselves as ‘chronically ill’, be that physically, mentally or emotionally. There are both a whole array of illnesses and those with an chronic illness - the type, severity, and impact on life differing for each person. 

The focus of Bravery Bottles is on the definition of the word ‘Bravery’ and an award is given from the participant to themselves when they feel that they’ve personally acted ‘bravely’. What the participant classes as brave personally is up to them, but the purpose of the project overall is to redefine ‘bravery’ and those who are considered as ‘brave’ within the chronically ill community. The aim is to include anyone facing any chronic illness, who has challenged their own limits, stepped outside of their own comfort zone, and achieved their own goals, and for this to be recognised and rewarded.

There are some aspects of illness that, by no fault of their own, wouldn’t even enter the minds of those without an illness and generally wouldn’t be given a second thought by the remainder of the chronically ill community, but to you may be the hardest thing in world to face. It’s in those exact situations that individual bravery can be rewarded, irrespective of the opinion of anyone else. 

Because of the amount of people who class themselves as chronically unwell and/or disabled (a decision I think only the person in question can and should make), there are so many projects and organisations set up, encouraging positivity and motivation and distracting from illness - whatever that may be. My project is just another example of that. However, unlike most illness-based projects that reward you with (beads, ribbons, cards etc.) for your positivity in hospital, ‘staying strong’ when you’re being blue-lighted to resus, surviving an ITU admission, getting through major surgery (you get the idea), Bravery Bottles puts you in charge of your rewards. You decide when you deserve to be rewarded, what you deserve a reward for. It also allows you to reward yourself whether you’re in hospital or not, and equips you with the means for doing so (beads are the rewards in the first instance in Bravery Bottles - see ‘how the project works’ (which you'll find as a tab at the top of the page) for more information.

How does ‘Bravery Bottles’ differ from other similar projects?

Put simply, the difference between my project and other similar well-known projects is based on the definition of ‘bravery’ within the chronically ill community, in particular who and what is considered as ‘brave’. The majority of other similar projects are aimed at those with an illness that, at times, means lengthy hospital admissions, the need to be blue-lighted to Resus in ambulances, require multiple ITU stays, need regular surgery etc. as their lives are at risk. Having to face ‘acute emergency’ type scenarios like this is, of course, very scary and no doubt deserves recognition and reward - and this project does just that.

As well though, it extends to include the people who still have to face, manage and cope with a chronic illness as part of their daily life, but who don’t necessarily have the ‘acute emergencies’ as mentioned previously as part of their illness. Those who have a ‘stable’ illness, or one that doesn’t require emergency hospital admissions, either because of the nature of their illness, or because they have community care implemented to allow them to be cared for at home when they’re more unwell than usual, are often not considered ‘ill enough’ to take part in these sort of similar projects. Not only is this unfair to the patient, but it also encourages competition within the medical community as to who is the ‘most ill’. Having thought about this, it made me realise that unless you spend a lot of time as an inpatient in hospital, you are almost always forgotten about, and hardly ever, if at all, considered as ‘brave’. 

Summary of the message portrayed by the project

 Anyone living with a chronic illness is brave; whether by the generic definition or otherwise, and that’s what Bravery Bottles promotes. Everyone has to face their own individual battles, and do so in their own individual way. ‘Bravery Bottles’, as a project, is inclusive of everyone battling a chronic illness, and bravery is rewarded to everyone in the same way, no matter what those battles are, or how they are faced and overcome.