I Will Grants

Queen’s Sailing Club’s fundraiser – Women on Water –  aims to increase the number of women joining QUBSC and either learn to sail or improve their sailing ability, whilst gaining confidence and having a good time, which is especially important after the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown. This project is especially important to our crew in Belfast, FatFace and the £500 will go a long way toward their £6,000 target. Happy sailing ladies! 

Head office crew member, Elissa, brought CLAPA – Cleft Lip and Palate Association – to the attention of the Foundation, winning them £750 to help fund the vital support they provide everyone affected by cleft in the UK. This last December, Elissa took her daughter to trek Everest – this is what she said:

Trekking to Everest Base Camp over 15 days in the month of December 2022 was a challenge in itself, temperatures at night plummeted to -15 degrees.

Everest Base Camp is at 17,598ft / 5,362m.  It was a tough slog to get there, but with the right mindset, right kit and having taken time to acclimatise we made it on day 11.  We were completely elated when we finally reached Base Camp.

I wanted to say a big thank you to FatFace for supporting me on my journey and also for making a donation of £750.00 to CLAPA, who are a Cleft charity.  They helped us hugely when my daughter was born with a cleft palate and had to go through multiple operations and speech therapy.

My daughter now aged 15, joined us on our trek to Base Camp which was a massive achievement for her too.

A personal thank you to FatFace for this contribution and making more babies smile.

Crew in our Tavistock store applied for £500 donation to the dedicated charity for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at St Michael’s Hospital, Cots for Tots. This wonderful charity, close to the hearts of our crew in Tavistock, work hard to ensure every sick or premature baby from across the South West has access to the very best care, 365 days a year.

The FatFace property team headed to the Chichester District foodbank this winter to volunteer for their Donate A Day. Whilst spending time with them they were made aware of a Winter Wamers box they are putting together for locals in need. Using the I Will grant funding we were able to donate 2 large boxes full of socks, hats, gloves and scarves (along with food donations brought in by head office crew).

Our retail field team have been supporting The Trussell Trust this winter and whilst doing so also applied for a £750 donation from our I Will grants. This money will go toward their Emergancy Fund Appeal which is helping to keep food banks across the UK going, providing food and supoprt for those in crisi and campaigning for change to end the need for food banks altogether.

Rachel from our Gatwick North store volunteers with Crawley CAP centre and applied for a £500 donation to go toward their Christmas hampers and childrens gifts for service users.

Ava from our Woking store volunteers with the Canalside Community Fridge and is thrill to be able to use this £500 donation to provide aprons for volunteers, tote bags for fridge users and volunteers and new signage to help promote the fridge in the area. Community fridges are open to everyone in communities – without any need to be referred or having to prove eligibility – to access fresh food that would otherwise have gone to waste. The food is donated by businesses – with Co-op donating surplus food from its stores. As well as improving access to food, the fridges go beyond this by empowering communities to connect with each other, and learn new skills through activities such as cookery sessions and workshops on how to grow your own fruit and veg.

Head office crew member, Emily, has secured a £750 donation for the One Love Project – an organisation that has built and continues to fund and support a school in Uganda. Emily says “I have personally been twice this year to help the charity and this year alone we have built a special needs centre at the school which I was able to see up and running this November.
This charity is really close to my heart as I have seen first-hand the conditions in Uganda and how little people have out there.”

Oban High School hold the ‘Pensioners Treat’ every year and recieved a £100 donation to help support this wonderful event. This is a particularly important event to Julie from our Oban store as she attended Oban high school and remembers meeting some lovely older people who shared their stories with the students. Lots of members of the older community love attending these events to get out and be social during a time where its colder and trickier for them to be out and about. Here is a video of this years event – bring a tissue!  

Ionela from Head Office has secured £300 for the Cornerstone church Baby and Toddler group in Portsmouth. This is something that both parents/carers and children enjoy very much. The parents/carers can develop friendships and support each other whilst the kids are playing and are learning new things and have a way of socialising in a safe and lovely environment. The donation will be used to supply new toys, crafts and healthy snacks for the children.

Jane from our Peebles store has won a £400 grant for a cause close hto her heart – Nomad Beat. They are a local music school whos mission is to promote music and reduce isolation through shared musical devlopment. They provide education, opportunities and support to the community. Jane’s son went there when he was younger and was great for his confidence. Manager, Roddy, was thrilled to learn of this donation and will be putting it toward buying a new electronic drum kit!

Helen from our FatFace Foundation shop in Havant applied for £750 donation to the amazing Sophie’s Legacy. A wonderful charity set up in the name of a courageous young girl, Sophie, who wanted to change children’s hospital experiences for the better. 

1 Play specialist 7 days a week in hospitals.
2 Improvements to food for children in hospital.
3 For parents to be fed when staying with their child.
4 For GP’s, nurses and health professionals to be trained in childhood cancer.
5 To increase the funds (currently 3%) in childhood cancer research.

Tina, from our Head Office, applied for a £750 grant for Community Friends in Worthing which is a group that has been set up by a couple in their 80s – Mike has done a lot of ‘helping the Community’ things at his previous church. He saw a need to get lonely people into a warm place for coffee and games, talks, films, outings and anything folk would like to do, it’s grown from about a dozen to almost 40. Great friendships have developed and some of the group arrange to meet up during the week. for Tina this is a cause very close to her heart as a family member has used the community space. “She recently moved to Worthing as was not local and became very isolated during covid. She had lived in her house for over 50 years with family and friends gradually moving away. After some persuasion, she reluctantly attended her first session (at community friends). She now visits weekly, sometimes twice weekly and has made no end of friends. This in turn has given her back the confidence to socialise with new friends outside the group and now is much more like her old self.”

Jonathan from our St Ives store applied for a £750 donation to Prostate Cancer UK, and says “it will make a huge difference as although a large charity it is something close to my heart but also the biggest cancer that affects the most amount of men in the UK.” Jonathan ran 26.2 miles throughout January 2023 to aise money for the charity alongside his 10 year old daughter – you can follow his fundraising here. 

Isabelle from our Aberdovey store has secured a £500 donation for Aberdyfi Rowing Club. She says “At present two of our young members are trying to fundraise to purchase a new double sculling boat. They are both fairly new to coastal rowing and sculling but have been extremely successful in the short time they having been rowing/competing together. Tim is a local lad who only started sculling about 2 and a half years ago, who originally started as he wished to learn a new skill and wanted to push himself. Chloe then started just over a year ago, just to keep fit to begin with. The club’s sculling coach, Alan, recognised a talent in them both and approached them to see if they would be willing to compete together. Alan was instrumental in there teaching and training. Only after a short time last year they were selected to row for GB and finished in the top 5 at the British Championships, they also competed in the World championships later in 2022. They are desperately trying to raise enough funds to purchase a new double scull boat which they will be able to train in.” Good luck Tim and Chloe!

Aviemore store manager, Judy, has secured a £750 grant for Grantown swim club. Here’s what Judy has said “Due to Covid the young swimmers have missed out on the opportunity to compete and to gain experience and develop their skills swimming in bigger pools and attending meets. We are working on building up their skills, fitness and confidence again. We are hoping to arrange a trip to the Royal Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh so the swimmers can have the opportunity to swim in an olympic sized pool and also spend time using the diving boards. It would be a brilliant, fun experience for them and for many of the younger ones it would be their first trip as part of the swim club so great for team building too. We are also keen to arrange more timing events, club competitions and friendlies with other clubs. It’s so beneficial for the swimmers to have goals to work towards and opportunities to be timed and to focus on beating their own Personal Bests. We want to build up their confidence and really celebrate their successes. We are hoping to have a Club Championship in the Spring and would like to arrange certificates, medals and trophies for this. £500 would help with the transport costs of the proposed Edinburgh trip and £250 would enable us to celebrate successes at the Club Championship.”

Karen, our Head of Retail Stores, applied for a £750 donation toward a friend’s daughters cancer treatment – see more here.