Charities
"At Hippychick we strongly believe in giving back. From our earliest days we’ve been committed to supporting causes close to our hearts at an international, national and local level. Being free to do this is without doubt one of the best things about having our own company." Julia Minchin
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We are delighted to announce that Educate the Kids is going to be our Charity of the Year 2016/17. The vision of this wonderful charity is to see the children in Africa have their needs met, their rights upheld, and their dreams fulfilled. They believe this can be achieved through education.
The Charity was founded by Maureen and Ian McIntyre in 1998 after visiting Kenya and being moved by the poverty, poor health and lack of basic facilities. Maureen set up the charity and sponsorship programme offering the poorest children access to a good education in the area of Utange, near Mombasa.
As numbers grew to 350 children, they needed new facilities – new schools, water, electricity, and computers. A big push on fundraising built the first phase of a new primary school. A well was dug providing fresh water for the children and the villagers surrounding the school, electricity was supplied allowing children who had previously read at home by candlelight to come back to school in the evening to study, it also allowed the children to use computers for the first time. Subsequently another three school blocks have been built to house the 551 pupils currently studying at Jolaurabi. The children are regularly performing in the top performance bands in the area in the government set exams.
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For more information you can either visit the website or like EducatetheKids on Facebook for regular charity updates http://www.educatethekids.com.
19th May 2016 - Hippychick support "Feel the Force Day" in Bridgwater, raising money for the Living Paintings Charity - Thank You Letter
Dear Julia & Jeremy 19th May 2016
Feel the Force Day - Bridgwater
We are writing to say a very heartfelt thank you for your support of Feel the Force Day Bridgwater. Your sponsorship and raffle prizes, supporting our promotion on twitter and your radio interview, was really appreciated. We hope you like the images we sent through, and that you receive some orders from the promotional flyers.
As you are aware, all monies for this not for profit event are going directly to the Living Paintings Charity. They are the only charity in the UK who design, create and publish tactile and audio books for blind and partially sighted people.
Tayens Journey are delighted that, allowing for expenses, the donations from the day time collections and raffle reached £1848.75. In addition a Just Giving page for Living Paintings received donations of £200.00 and via the Somerset Community Foundation, EDF donated a further £200.00. Living Paintings will directly benefit from a combined total of £2248.75. The link www.justgiving.com/Kali-Gilbert1 remains open for any further donations received.
Without sponsorship support the event would have been much smaller, and limiting for our visitors who cannot access film and television in the traditional way. By example, I would like to share a quote we have received which sums up everything we hoped we could achieve from the event.
“Feel the Force, Bridgwater 2016 was a truly enjoyable, all inclusive, accessible event . My 12 year old daughter with cere- bral palsy got as much out of the experience as her 7 year old Star Wars crazy brother, and Mummy had a great day too. Everyone we encountered, the many costumers, the Jedi Fight Academy Master, the collectors and stall holders were kind, pa- tient and understanding of her 'busy hands'. A thoroughly enjoyable day out made better by the knowledge it was fund raising
for a fantastic cause. Well done to the team, we're already looking forward to next year! - Emma Mendoza“
Thank you again for all of your help. We hope that we have the opportunity to work with you again in the future.
Yours sincerely Kali & Kevin Gilbert
Over 2000 Santas gathered in Bristol for a festive fancy dress fun run sponsored by Hippychick
More than 2000 people registered for the 2km (1.4 miles) Santa's on the Run event, organised by Children's Hospice South West.
Many other runners have taken part in similar Santa runs in Cornwall and Taunton..
"It's lovely to think that so many people will be kick-starting the festive season in style whilst also raising vital funds for CHSW's Charlton Farm hospice in Wraxall," said Julia Minchin Director of Hippychick.
As well as the running participants also dressed up dogs, and Prams which was judged by Hippychick
In Bristol, the fancy dress-clad runners were led in a zumba style warm-up before setting off on the short run around Bristol city centre.
The charity, which began in 1991, operates three hospices in the South West - one in North Devon, one in North Somerset and one in Cornwall.
Boys vs girls in the £50 Challenge!
As part of its Charity of the Year partnership with Children’s Hospice South West (CHSW), Bridgwater-based Hippychick is taking part in the charity’s £50 Challenge.
Backed by business entrepreneur Deborah Meaden, The £50 Challenge urges businesses to think as creatively as possible and use all their acumen to invest the money and turn it into a much bigger amount in just three months.
In an interesting twist to the challenge, two teams from Hippychick will go head-to-head to see who can generate the most revenue from the initial £50 investment. The ‘Hippy Chicks’ will take on the ‘Hippy Chaps’ and Julia Minchin, Founder and Managing Director, says they are both ready for the challenge: “Both teams are determined to raise as much as possible for our chosen charity, Children’s Hospice South West. The girls have already started by selling cream teas in the office – although the boys haven’t bought any!”
Kate Fisher, Corporate Fundraiser at CHSW says, “There’s nothing like a bit of inter-office competition to get some really creative ideas. Both teams are hugely enthusiastic and we can’t wait to see how much is raised for CHSW by the end of November!”
If you are interested in getting a team together from your business to take part in The £50 Challenge, please visit www.chsw.org.uk/the50challenge, call 01275 866600 or email corporate@chsw.org.uk
Children’s Hospice South West
We have chosen Children’s Hospice South West (CHSW) as our Charity of the Year for 2015/16. For those of you not familiar with this wonderful charity (the only local children’s hospice in our area), CHSW supports over 180 life-limited children that sadly will not reach the age of 19 at their specialist hospice in North Somerset through respite, days out, emergency and end of life care. They are there for the whole family; right from the point of diagnosis to the end of their child’s life and beyond. CHSW is a safe haven for families who face the most difficult road imaginable and we will be looking at lots of different ways for our staff and customers to get involved. To find out more about the charity visit www.chsw.org.uk.
Make–A–Wish Foundation® UK – Our First Ever "Charity Of The Year" For 2012
At Hippychick we’re committed to improving the quality of family life and to making it fun, which is why we were so delighted to have tied up with the fantastic Make-A-Wish as our first ever ‘Charity of the Year’ in 2012. We managed to raise well over £11,000 by the end of the year with fundraising initiatives including sky diving by two brave members of the Hippychick team, a constantly full clothing bank, coffee mornings, and donations linked to sales of Wheelybugs and Hipseats.
Laura Fisher at Make-A-Wish summed it up: “Thank you so much for all your support over the last year and for sending across the highlights of your campaign. We really do not under estimate the achievement. Hippychick have done so well and from a standing start to raise over £11k is really terrific!”
International
Hippychick were delighted to have paid for the monthly maintenance, including clean filters and uv lamps, of a Water House in a secondary school, located in one of the deprived areas of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Water Houses are connected to the main city water system. Sadly the pipes within the city are very old and unclean, and therefore contaminate the water. The Water Houses provide a system of filters and uv lamps which purify the water to provide clean drinking water for the children. According to Field Director, Philippa Vernon-Powell, this particular Water House provided approximately 1,168,000 cups of clean drinking water a year to the 1,340 students and teachers! https://www.facebook.com/newlifemexicoFor fifteen years a percentage of all of our profits went to New Life Mexico – an award winning British Charity - which supports vulnerable children and young people in Mexico through health, education and social programmes. To find out more about the work of this amazing charity go to www.newlifemexico.com.
National and Local
We supported the National Charity, Epilepsy Action, through sales of our best selling Dream Tubes brand this year from May 17, the start of National Epilepsy Week, through to June 17 2015. We were delighted to help, albeit in a very small way, raise funds for their vital work in helping the estimated 600,000 affected by the condition in the UK. www.epilepsy.org.uk.
From time to time we hold very popular end of line sales at our office (keep an eye on our website and Facebook pages for details!) with a share of sales going direct to the NSPCC, www.nspcc.org.uk and local, Somerset based St Margaret’s Hospice, www.somerset-hospice.org.uk. Three members of the Hippychick team (Julia, Frances and Rose) recently trained hard and took part in a Triathlon to raise money for the NSPCC.
We are also huge admirers of the work done by another local charity, the voluntarily run adoption agency, Families for Children www.familiesforchildren.org.uk. This inspiring organisation has in the last five years alone, placed over 200 children from throughout the UK who have experienced loss and upheaval, with stable and loving families in Devon, Dorset and Cornwall.
We try to support this wonderful work in whatever way we can. The children they place are from all over the UK and are found new adoptive families in Devon, Dorset, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. Many of the children placed are vulnerable and have complex extra needs resulting from early childhood traumatic experiences, including abuse, neglect or extreme changes in their lives. Jeremy recently pushed himself to new physical limits doing their sponsored Two Moors Walk – from the South Devon to the North Devon Coast – a whopping 116 miles in 3 days, with Julia helping to organise fundraising events and activities! A huge thank you to all the kind friends, customers and businesses who helped us raise many thousands!
If you are a charity that would like to be considered for a charity partnership, please contact: enquiries@hippychick.com.