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Wednesday evening saw Lichfield Soroptimists and visitors gather to mark this important day in the Soroptimist calendar. We are creating a membership buzz in advance of May, membership month. Amanda officially joined the club and as Project Manager of the lottery funded charity ‘Talent Match’ she is keen to involve her network for the benefit of the club and our projects.
Gay Cox of Breast Cancer Now received a cheque for over £1100 from the Club. Over the 20 years of fundraising during which the target of £1m becomes ever closer, Gay emphasised the importance of two aspects of the work. One is the Generation Study and the other, the establishment of dedicated research centres. Every moment of time of the team at these is given to looking for answers, without the worry of year on year bidding for funding.
Along with talking about her son Stephen, ‘I’m just an average teenager but I’ve got cancer’, Jane also explained what has been undertaken with the sum of over £5m raised in his name.
- £3.1m is invested in dedicated units for teenagers with cancer
- £200,000 is for weekend events for teenagers – ‘Find Your Sense of Tumour’
- £500,000 is being used to develop an online communication and information centre for teenagers
- £1.2m is for 50 scholarships in Stephen’s name for trainee doctors
Currently, 7 diagnoses are made every day and there are resources to help only half of those. The aim is that by 2020 there will be resources to support all children – the financial target for this is £80m.
Both our speakers spoke of love, kindness, practical help and dignity. The message that resonated with us was:
Always try to be kinder than necessary