We work hard at trying to fundraise for our children’s projects. And we are fortunate that sometimes we get approached by people who’ve found us, and who have been moved by the needs of Palestinian children, latterly in Gaza, and offer to run events for us, such as the bring and buy sale in Glasgow, or the cabaret evening and art auction in Edinburgh.

Then out of the blue, we received two emails in fairly quick succession. To be honest, when I opened them, I was very dubious. Two companies within 3 days of each other writing an email to us, offering a donation to our charity. I wondered if we were at the receiving end of one of those “you distant relative has died and you’re the only relation we could find” scams.

But it pays not to be cynical. Because there’s a world of people (and companies) out there who are looking to do good and to give.

And so it was that I read an email from Olympus KeyMed, which contained the lines “You’ll be delighted to hear that Hope and Play was picked as one of the chosen charities for the month of January and received votes from staff.  In this context, I would appreciate it if you would contact me directly to discuss the electronic transfer of £1000 to assist with the charity’s ongoing work.”

I did the research. The company is very real, does very real work in creating very real medical devices, is very really registered, has very real employees and is really very generous. And they made the transfer of funds, which is going straight to our trauma programme for children in Gaza. Thank you Olympus KeyMed and thank you to your employees for voting for us.

And within days, we’d received another email. The content? “Every couple of years our company,  generously offers to donate £600 for each employee to a charity of their choice. I am pleased to advise that one of our employees has selected Hope & Play as their charity. Please could you advise how we can make a donation to you on behalf of our member of staff. It would be preferable if you could provide bank details so that we can arrange payment to you.”

Again, I did the research. Orbis Investment Advisory Ltd is again a very real company which makes very real investment, and has very real employees one of whom did indeed ask for a donation to be made to Hope and Play. And so it was that we received another generous corporate donation from Orbis to our project.

Thank you Orbis, Olympus KeyMed and all your employees who chose to support our project. Your collective £1,600 will allow us to deliver a psychosocial, education and play programme to 47 severely traumatised children in Gaza.

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedinmail