Ben, Seb, and Charlie’s Story
Congratulations to Ben, Seb, and Charlie, who raised £3,320 by completing the London to Brighton Cycle, hosting bake sales, workshops, and selling prints.
We caught up with Charlie, who shared their fundraising journey with us.
“Edie was born last July with a unilateral cleft lip and palate. We really couldn’t imagine navigating the last 18 months without CLAPA. From the 20-week scan when the Cleft Nurse said, ‘Only read CLAPA, don’t Google anything’ to the prenatal support groups and the book they gave to our five-year-old daughter Ottilie, preparing her for Edie’s arrival.
The CLAPA Facebook group, where we’ve met many lovely local Cleft families, has helped us so much and given Edie lifelong friends.
Then, when Edie arrived, we received a welcome pack and specialist bottles; we would have been completely stuck without them.
CLAPA has continued supporting us with coffee groups, Q&A talks, and free signing courses.
We saw that CLAPA urgently needed funding at the beginning of the year and wanted to help. We decided to set up a Just Giving page there. We had grand plans to run events throughout the year in our little venue in Hertford.
The year didn’t quite plan out as expected. Edie’s palate op kept getting postponed, which meant we had to move some of the events to next year. Instead, we’ve raised money through bake sales, selling artwork, and Ben and his friend Seb did the London to Brighton bike ride earlier in the month.
Along with the fundraising, we set up an Instagram page when Edie was born, documenting Edie’s Cleft journey to help raise awareness.
Off the back of that and fundraising, we’ve met an amazing community of cleft-affected families online. We’ve had lots of support from others and people saying they’ve learned so much about the condition, which has helped spur us on!
To anyone else who would like to fundraise for CLAPA, please do it! However big or small. It’s such an important charity to so many families.”
