We are so grateful for our race runners this year who have done an amazing job at challenging themselves in long races! Emma is doing brilliantly with training and is looking forward to proudly wearing her Lollipop running shirt for the race.
“I am running the Leeds Half Marathon on 11th May, my first half marathon in six years! Along the way, I am fundraising for Lollipop – a wonderful charity supporting children in the York area who have hearing difficulties.
Our little boy Harry is deaf and wears hearing aids. Over the past couple of years, we have attended some brilliant Lollipop events. These always bring such joy and happiness to Harry. I also find their events incredibly supportive and the staff and volunteers are wonderful, so I would really love to give a little bit back to them.
So I have decided to get my running shoes back on in the hope to raise some money for wonderful Lollipop and would really appreciate any sponsorship! I will be joined by my friend Ali who is supporting me with my training and is running with me on the day.”
“I’m a 46-year-old dad of two, doing my best to juggle a busy corporate job in the city which involves a fair bit of travelling, being a husband to an amazing wife, and hopefully the best Dad I can be to two young and very energetic boys! Since having the boys, I realised my fitness had taken a back seat and I was keen to rectify that and get running again (something I used to enjoy pre-kids but have since found every excuse possible to avoid!). To provide some much-needed motivation, I applied for a ballot place in last year’s London Marathon, secretly relieved when I didn’t get in due to it being so oversubscribed. I applied again this year with the mindset that yet again I’d be unlikely to get a place. To my horror though, I was one of the ‘lucky’ ones to get accepted and the full realization dawned on me that I had no more excuses and I had to get out training!
It’s been a tough winter battling the endless bugs from the kids and the cold early mornings trying to get the miles in. But somehow, I made it to 15 miles last weekend, and with just over seven weeks to go, the reality is setting in and I desperately need to increase my mileage week by week!
That said, I’m really looking forward to London Marathon— especially the support and atmosphere on the day, though I also have a healthy amount of fear and knowledge that I’m no longer anywhere near my prime and that the training (and recovery) is taking it’s toll. But what’s keeping me going is the chance to raise money for such an incredible charity. Thanks to my wife Anna, I get to see first-hand the amazing impact it has on deaf children, young people and their families, and knowing I’m supporting them will (hopefully) push me through those last, painful miles.”
Can you spot Gav in his Lollipop shirt below? We honestly can’t thank him enough for raising such a great amount (and we hope the winter training was worth the experience!)
The Onebright Paddlers will be rowing their way along the Ouse for Lollipop on 13th July!
Onebright are a personalised mental healthcare company based in York, they work with everyone from insurance providers and companies to GP’s and individuals to get people the support they need to feel better. We are proud to have their support! They are fundraising for both Lollipop and Place2Be. Here is why they chose to support Lollipop…
Emma Parish, who works for Onebright is mum to a Lollipop member “My daughter, Ava Gallantree, is a member of Lollipop. She has moderate bilateral hearing loss and wears a bone anchored hearing aid. She has been deaf since she was 10 months old and is now approaching 16 years old. We have attended various activities with yourselves over the last 15 years and she is looking forward to the pizza party next month!”
We will add a photo of the team here shortly, and it would be brilliant if as many of our supporters as possible could sponsor the team!
Rotary Club of York Charity Fund: The Onebright Paddlers Team Page
Local business Humdinger Foods has recently donated an amazing £1,896.85!
As a result of company fundraising this fantastic amount was presented to Lollipop on Friday 31st January at Humdinger HQ in Sherburn in Elmet. Here is Nicky Olssen from Humdinger with Cheryl McBride, our Parent Liaison Officer.
Thank you to everyone at Humdinger for their continued support throughout the year, we are incredibly grateful! Raffles were held to raise the money which Humdinger then generously matched with another donation to take it up to the total. Donations like these are vital to ensure Lollipop has the funds to continue providing support to our local deaf community of children and young people in and around York.
Gav Young (Anna’s husband) is running the London Marathon for Lollipop in April! Thank you so much Gav, we will all be cheering you on and wish you all the best with your training! We will be posting updates on his training (currently up to 15 miles!) and of course how his run goes on Sunday 27th April.
Here is some news from Gav about how his training is going and why he wanted to run the marathon in support of Lollipop!
I’m a 46-year-old dad of two, doing my best to juggle a busy corporate job in the city which involves a fair bit of travelling, being a husband to an amazing wife, and hopefully the best Dad I can be to two young and very energetic boys!
Since having the boys, I realised my fitness had taken a back seat and I was keen to rectify that and get running again (something I used to enjoy pre-kids but have since found every excuse possible to avoid!). To provide some much-needed motivation, I applied for a ballot place in last year’s London Marathon, secretly relieved when I didn’t get in due to it being so oversubscribed. I applied again this year with the mindset that yet again I’d be unlikely to get a place. To my horror though, I was one of the ‘lucky’ ones to get accepted 😂 🙈 and the full realization dawned on me that I had no more excuses and I had to get out training!
It’s been a tough winter battling the endless bugs from the kids 🤧 and the cold early mornings 🥶 trying to get the miles in. But somehow, I made it to 15 miles last weekend, and with just over seven weeks to go, the reality is setting in and I desperately need to increase my mileage week by week!
That said, I’m really looking forward to London Marathon— especially the support and atmosphere on the day, though I also have a healthy amount of fear and knowledge that I’m no longer anywhere near my prime and that the training (and recovery) is taking it’s toll. But what’s keeping me going is the chance to raise money for such an incredible charity. Thanks to my wife Anna, I get to see firsthand the amazing impact it has on deaf children, young people and their families, and knowing I’m supporting them will (hopefully) push me through those last, painful miles.
We have been granted £4,000 by Ovingdean Hall Foundation, also for activities costs over the next year. All our activities are free for members to attend, and these grants help to make it possible!
Last but not least, we have been successful in securing £5,000 from The Two Ridings Community Foundation to contribute towards our ever-increasing running costs.
To top it all off our Christmas prize draw and raffle raised a fantastic £760 this year!
Thank you to everyone who entered the prize draw and raffle, and to all the organisations who have chosen to support Lollipop!
Tickets are now on sale for our fabulous festive prize draw and raffle! As always, we have fantastic prizes on offer and are extremely grateful to all the businesses and organisations who have generously donated prizes! Details of all the prizes you can win are below, more are being added each week!
The easiest way to enter the prize draw is to visit our GoFundMe Prize Draw page. Tickets are £1 each. Simply donate to the page to buy entries into the draw. For example, donate £10 to buy 10 tickets. GoFundMe do not allow us to include all the information about the draw and prizes on our GoFundMe fundraising page, so all the details are further down this page!
**Please put your name and contact details on the donation to ensure we know who to enter into the draw! We will only contact you using these details if you have won a prize. Help us to sell as many tickets as possible by sharing this link with your family and friends! **
Paper tickets are available from Cheryl (parentsupport@lollipopyork.org.uk). Please email her to request tickets to be sent to you in the post. Tickets will also be available to buy at the Christmas party itself on 1st December.
Prizes
Race vouchers x 2
Hamper of delicious goodies!
Family ticket for Disc Golf at Ripley Castle
Family ticket for wizard golf!
1.5 hr energy healing session
Afternoon tea
Luxury hamper
Family ticket
Hamper of chocolate
Chocolate making experience
Hollywood Bowl and Puttstars vouchers
More prizes are being added every week until the draw!
Deaf Lottery UK is an exciting weekly lottery that raises money for Deaf organisations in the UK. All the organisations included in the Deaf lottery support Deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK. There is a top prize of **£25,000** in the weekly draw every Saturday at 8:00pm
Writing a Will is a task many of us have on our to-do list but never seem to get to, whether through lack of time or lack of finances to be able to afford a solicitor’s fees.
Free Wills is an online, or over the phone, service that allows you to write a legally binding Will for free, in plain English, that will be checked by a solicitor before completion. It is a quick process, for most people taking about 15 minutes.
By becoming a partner of Free Wills Lollipop can give it’s supporters a way to access making a Will. Following the link above will take you to a special landing page at Free Wills especially for Lollipop supporters, and as part of the Will-writing process you will be prompted to decide if you would like to leave a gift or donation to Lollipop in your Will. After the Will is written you can also access it and make changes free of charge at any time.
To find out more you can visit Free Wills – a link to their frequently asked questions page is below.
This means we have £4,000 to enable us to run activities for the coming year (Sept 2024 – Sept 2025) which is wonderful news!
We will shortly be polling our members to find out which activities they would most like to try with their Lollipop friends. We aim to provide the experiences that members are most interested in – in previous years this has meant we have been climbing, go-karting and swimming, plus much more (see our Recent Activities page)! Often these can be activities where members have felt they haven’t been confident to take part previously, and Lollipop provides a safe space to try new things, with communications support and deaf awareness, often with exclusive use of the venue or modifications to the activity to give the best environment possible for our members to gain confidence.
Thank you to Ovingdean Hall Foundation for their wonderful support.
Our Sponsors
Lollipop is primarily funded through The National Lottery Community Fund. We are also funded by BBC Children In Need with further support from many local and national organisations.
Gav Young (Anna’s husband) is running the London Marathon for Lollipop in April! Thank you so much Gav, we will all be cheering you on and wish you all the best with your training! We will be posting updates on his training (currently up to 15 miles!) and of course how his run goes on Sunday 27th April.
