Stitchers Anon breast cancer fundraiser

Many of you will know Gaynor who blogs as Stitchers Anon, or you may know her through her designing. Gaynor had breast cancer and is coming up to 3 years of being clear of it.  She does a lot to raise money and awareness for this by donating a percentage of her profits from charts to charity, with Holmsey and Fergus charts being 50% to a teenage cancer charity.

I know that in this day and age, we are bombarded with pleas to send money to this charity or that charity, and that if we could, we would send to them all.  Gaynor is now doing something with a difference to raise funds by having a giant fundraising giveaway.  Loads of people have donated crafted prizes, and Gaynor herself has made loads too.  All you need to do to be in with a chance of winning something is to donate €1 to her Justgiving page.  €1!  That's it!  At today's exchange rate that works out as 79p or $1.31.  For UK people that is the equivalent of 1 skein of DMC from most places!  Gaynor is even paying the postage to get your prize to you but will happily accept money towards that too!  There are loads of prizes, so you have a good chance of winning. She is looking to raise €500 so if every single one of my followers donated just €1, we could nearly reach half of that for her.

So many women (and some men) are touched by breast cancer or they know someone who has (or had). The sooner there is a proper cure for this horrible disease, the better!

Link to the prizes HERE

Over to Gaynor!

Finally, after a lot of thought I've worked out what I want to do with the fund-raising items and I've found the perfect charity.  Remember, I want compassion and I want research!

My breast cancer team: surgeon, oncologist and radiotherapy guys all work within a centre of excellence in Galway University Hospital.

My surgeon, Professor Kerin and the head of oncology, Dr. Keene work closely with the USA (Washington) and the Uk to plough ahead in breast cancer research.  So imagine my surprise when searching through the charities, I found the Proff has started one of his own!  

The Prof is the director of The National Breast Cancer Research Institute. 

This is a charity based in Ireland but as I've said, these guys work with the USA and the UK as well as other European countries.  Ireland may have an image of leprochauns and diddly diddly music, but where breast cancer is concerned we are ahead of the UK and many other countries in that we receive treatments long before they are approved by the NHS and it is thanks to this guy above and Dr Keene, that Tamoxifen was approved in the Uk last year as a preventative drug. 

Thankfully in Ireland I was put on it automatically er, two and half years ago.  So for me that is important: the charity I chose has to help all women whereve they may live..and this does 

So that ticks the research button.

And I know this guy.  I know the money will go where it is needed.  Whatever time my appointments, however long the line, I always get to see him.  He pops in and talks to everyone so you can build up a relationship of trust which is so important when you have a cancer diagnosis.  He holds your hand, comes out with terrible jokes, hands you tissues, and once, post surgery and post morphine, he accepted a  marriage proposals!

The Prof (as we call him: we can be informal, he has seen bits of us that usually would only be seen after a bottle of white wine lol) is a wonderful surgeon and I know that even though he was the man who made my world come crushing down in tiny pieces: he was also the man who helped me and my family build it all back up again. This is my thank you to an amazing team whose research, compassion, dedication, and yes, passion, for finding cures means women all over the world will benefit.

 So all donations will go through a Just-Give page which is perfectly safe to use. 

For every single euro donated you will be issued a raffle ticket and I will write your name on it and put it into a container.  So if you donate one euro, you get one ticket: two euros, two tickets and at the end of October I will draw winners.  I am expecting more prizes in from other people who are making them as we speak and I have some more to add as well.  I will put piccies up in the Prize page (You can see it on the top bar).

I know times are hard but honestly, one euro will be much appreciated.

You can find my Just give page  HERE

Please, be careful to donate under my name and not under the charity directly as I won't see any record of the transaction and so won't be able to issue you draw tickets.

Please share and thank you xxx

Oh one last thing.  I won't be expecting you to pay postage but as I'm sure you will appreciate, this could end up costing me quite a lot.  If you would like to make a small donation towards postage costs if you are chosen as a winner please contact me for my paypal page.  Anything donated to the Just Give page is handled by a third party. I won't be able to get postage costs out of it xxxxx