Calendar Girls hold inaugural Tea with the Girls fundraising event
Melanie May | 20 April 2017 | News
The Calendar Girls have launched a new fundraising event for Bloodwise, that invites women to hold an afternoon tea this summer in support of the charity.
The inaugural Bloodwise Tea with the Girls was held on 12th April, 18 years to the day since their first alternative WI calendar. The new fundraising event was inspired and initiated by the original Girls, who hosted this month’s first tea.
The Girls were joined at the launch in Burnsall Village Hall by family, friends and members of the local community who were instrumental in the making of the first calendar, as well as by a number of local blood cancer patients.
Diana Jupp, acting CEO of Bloodwise, said:
“We are incredibly proud of all that the Girls have achieved, and will be forever grateful for the amount of money and awareness that they have raised for Bloodwise over the years.
“Their fundraising has undoubtedly transformed blood cancer research and directly improved the lives of patients living with the disease today. With the money raised from Tea with the Girls we can fund more research that will save the lives of patients with the disease, which kills more people each year than breast or prostate cancer.”
A free Tea with the Girls fundraising pack including a guide to hosting an event, celebrity recipe cards and cake toppers is available from the Bloodwise site.
The original calendar was conceived by Angela Baker and her friends in Yorkshire after her husband John passed away from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. To date, the ladies have raised £4 million for Bloodwise.
Tea parties are a popular fundraiser: National Tea Day takes place this week on 21st April with a number of charities taking part, including The Sick Children’s Trust with its Big Chocolate Tea event, British Red Cross with its HumaniTea, and The Trussell Trust, which is asking people to host a Tea for Trussell.
Main image: The inaugural Tea with the Girls with the original WI Alternative Calendar girls and local blood cancer patients in Burnsall Village Hall, North Yorks, April 12 2017.
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.