Let the Christmas fairs begin! Our winter charity celebrations may have begun on 9th October with CLIC Sargeant’s Cornish Dinner and Dance, but Christmas was truly launched last week when we took part in our local Macmillan’s Christmas Fair on Wednesday and Thursday. It’s the only fair that Celtic Sheepskin attends, as logistically getting all our items onto a couple of rails and trestle tables is impossible, particularly when there’s so much options on sizes and colours, but Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas if we didn’t kick start it at the Macmillan’s fair.
It was our greatest pleasure to have the opportunity to sponsor the lunch this year, serving no less than the smoked salmon sandwiches for all the hungry shoppers. And as a stall holder we donated 15% of our takings, so we were really pleased to hand over our donation on Thursday afternoon.
Last year the fair raised £21,000 for Macmillan, a charity who goes out of their way to support the lives of people affected by cancer. The final fundraising figure for last week is yet to be released, and we really hope that Celtic Sheepskin and the remarkable efforts of the committee and other stall holders have helped to surpass that target, adding to the £312,000 raised over the years by the craft fair. And all by people shopping for their Christmas presents!
Here are some pictures of our stall…
And if that wasn’t great enough, yesterday I was forwarded an email from Anna Koska who successfully braved a climb to the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest freestanding mountain in the world! What a fantastic achievement. Before her climb, Anna approached us to see if we were willing to donate a pair of boots to her cause. We humbly agreed, and received a lovely email from Anna yesterday writing;
“Thank you for your involvement and spirit of play. I had to deal with Safari Ants taking chunks out of my feet and ankles, wet freezing feet, split toenails, blisters and general misery! Believe me, having those soft feet cosseting boots to slip into in my tent every night made such a difference to my frame of mind. One of life's luxuries became a point of sanity after a day of climbing. And I have no chilblains. Result!!”
Anna continued to explain the charity work she achieved as a result of her climb: “To climb this big volcano was quite an achievement, but the next mountain was the press conference we helled in Dar es Salaam. There my team and I spoke to Tanzania's main TV and Radio stations and their major newspapers. They were shocked at the message regarding syringe reuse in Tanzania and vowed to publish and run the message to all their people.
Over 20 million HIV infected injections are given in Tanzania every year.
Villagers in Arusha told me of children with HIV caught through injections received from ignorant healthcare workers in clinics. This is both needless and indefensible.
As we flew home, Safepoint were being sent the coverage and we can now see that literally millions people were told about the dangers of reuse.
And now we have the press on our side. We're able to help these people make an informed choice - something that every parent should be allowed to make.
It makes me feel both proud and very humble to have helped in this way.”
Above is an image of Anna at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, wearing her Knee Celt Boots!!
So on that very humbling note, I leave you with the assurance that we will continue to strive to help charities where we can. Next stop is walking with Santa’s Sleigh around our local streets for children to meet Father Christmas… ho ho ho!
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