‘Create & Celebrate’ will include an art exhibition, a craft sale, and hopefully an opportunity to see our amazing dogs in action, and aims to raise much needed funds for Canine Partners.
Two very talented artists have created exclusive designs for the event – Nicky Barfoot has created four designs of our dogs doing tasks which can be used on mugs, coasters and greetings cards, while Shannon Christine has designed a cross stitch pattern of Garon, a canine partner to Becca, for people to make and donate for sale. You can find the pattern on the Facebook page for the event if you’d like to stitch and donate your version.
Olive started supporting Canine Partners in 2015 when she was looking for a small charity that involved people and dogs where she felt her funds raised would make a difference. She was living in Haslemere, near to our Southern training centre, at the time, so felt Canine Partners was an obvious choice and created her ‘Textile Art Challenge’ event to raise money.
Olive says: “The Canine Partners family embraced me and the idea and we raised in excess of £2,000. During this time I met many partnerships and saw the liberating impact the dogs have on their partners. I have continued to support Canine Partners ever since, including a coffee morning in our village in Scotland, where we retired to, which raised over £800.
Olive is now looking for items for the craft sale and exhibition, which she hopes will also be a great opportunity for emerging artists and students to have their work seen in two very busy and prestigious venues.
Would you like to get involved?
Check out Olive’s Facebook page, where you can find out more, including the lovely cross stitch pattern and how to donate other craft items for the sale.
Paws for a Cuppa invites you to host a tea party with friends and family and raise much needed funds for Canine Partners.
Many of our events have had to be cancelled during lockdown, and so Paws for a Cuppa is a way to still get together safely to show your support. Lots of you have already taken part, including Sally and her canine partner Dudley who chose a posh afternoon tea theme and raised an amazing £1,166, Wilma and her canine partner Belle who held two events and raised £600 in total, and Penny (pictured) and her husband Doug who raised nearly £500.
If you’d like to host your own party, you can still take part by clicking the link below. And we’d like to say a big thank you to all of our fundraisers, we hope you enjoyed your cuppas!
Would you like to take part?
Check out our Paws for a Cuppa page, where you can find out more and download our free e-pack.
Bags of Help is Tesco’s local community grant scheme where the money raised by the carrier bag charge in Tesco stores is being used to fund thousands of community projects.
Yoyo is a yellow Labrador and she has just had her first birthday. Volunteers have been taking care of puppy Yoyo for the past year and, along with all her classmates in Bedford, she has had a very different experience to what the charity would have planned for her. Weekly classes and outings in the local neighbourhood and further afield all ceased during Lockdown and Yoyo’s training became home-based. The charity has instead moved quickly to produce a wide variety of over 60 training, welfare and activity videos. This kept Yoyo and her puppy parents busy as she continued to learn new tasks and enjoy her training.
Yoyo is now getting out much more and learning about the world and, thanks to the funding from Tesco’s Bags of Help scheme, it is hoped she will move on to be considered for matching with one of the charity’s many clients on the waiting list for one of these very special dogs.
So from Yoyo, and all of us, thank you to Tesco Bags of Help for this fantastic support!
Get involved
There are so many ways you can get involved and help raise awareness and money for Canine Partners. To find out more, please visit our Fundraising page.
Tim’s wife, Charlotte, volunteers for Canine Partners, as they live close to our Midlands training centre, and he’s attended one of our information sessions in the past and seen the amazing work that our charity does, so he decided to use his Kilimanjaro challenge to raise much needed funds.
After some practice climbs around the UK to prepare for the challenge, and to get used to their walking boots and climbing gear, Tim and Darren set off for Tanzania on 14 March, ready to start their climb two days later. As news started to break around Covid-19, they were worried their flight might be cancelled, but aside from a temperature check at Kilimanjaro airport and a half-empty plane, everything else went ahead as normal.
The trek took seven days, and they reached the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro at sunrise on day six. The final ascent began around midnight, and was a very tough climb! However it was worth all the hard work when they made it to the top and saw the incredible views from Uhuru peak, which stands at 5,895m and is the highest point in all of Africa. After walking all through the night, they then had to turn around and begin their descent back down the mountain, for their final night of camping.
After a week of no news or phone signal, Tim and Darren arrived home on 24 March to find out the UK was officially going into lockdown, so they had managed to fly back just in time! We are so grateful for their fantastic contribution, which will help us to keep going during these uncertain times. Tim says, “The difference the dogs make to peoples lives is incredible. I’m glad we’re been able to contribute some funds to help towards training up more amazing dogs.”
Take on a challenge for Canine Partners
Do you fancy taking on a challenge to help raise vital funds? Visit our Challenges page for inspiration.
Looking for a fun competition to do during lockdown, Carolyn decided to invite her family to guess which of the sunflower seeds she had planted would grow the tallest in return for a donation to Canine Partners. Her daughter Angela then named the sunflowers after six special dogs who have all been trained by the charity and invited friends to get involved.
Angela says, “Being physically disabled, Wilko has made a massive change to my life. He picks objects up, gets me dressed, brings me my mobile, gets my husband when I fall. And on top of this he is just the most wonderful companion and friend. I am indebted to Canine Partners but so too is my family who know that Wilko is there to help me. They all worry less about me now and he has changed all of our lives for the better. There was no other option when choosing a charity [to raise funds for].”
Carolyn and Angela also know this is a difficult time for charities. Covid-19 means that we are receiving fewer donations, and all of our fundraising events and 30th anniversary celebrations have been cancelled. They were initially aiming to raise £100, but have already raised over £600 and we want to say a big thank you to them for their support! This summer, you can follow the sunflowers’ progress and add your donation to Angela’s JustGiving page.
Fundraise for Canine Partners
Have you got a unique fundraising idea like Angela and Carolyn? If not, visit our Fundraising Page for inspiration.
With their love of dogs and of fundraising for local charities, they’ve raised over £2,000 through a variety of fantastic fundraising ideas.
Year Seven raised £1,800 in charity fundraising last year, and so the pupils were encouraged to make plans and set individual targets to try and raise the same amount again. Their range of creative ideas included a whole school mufti (non-school uniform) day, table top and cake sales, sponsored swims, star jumps and a park run, and electronic-free weekends. One student cooked a week’s worth of meals for her grandparents and another created a three course dinner date for her parents.
To date they have raised an impressive £2,049.03! We would like to say a huge thank you to all of them for their fantastic support!
Fundraise for Canine Partners
If your school would like to raise money for us, please visit our Fundraising page.
Back in May, we asked our partnerships if anyone wanted to take part in the At Home Superheroes event to raise vital funds for Canine Partners.
As official Charity Friends of the Superhero Series, the UK’s one and only disability sports series, we were very excited to ask them to take part in the perfect mission to keep super-charged this summer – At Home Superheroes!
Participants of At Home Superheroes can take part as an individual, as a duo or as a team of 3, to complete distance that they determine, between the 15 June 2020 and 15 July 2020. The challenge can be completed anywhere (living room, garden, neighbourhood) and in any way (walk, run, push, wheel, canoe, swim).
Canine Partners would like to say a huge thank you and good luck to all of our At Home Superheroes taking part in the challenge over the next few weeks!
To find out more, please visit our events page.
Bev has been a long time supporter ever since the secondary school class she taught was treated to a demonstration by one of our amazing dogs, Hector.
Later, when her father became a wheelchair user following a severe stroke, she became far more aware of the difficulties people face when they live with physical limitations and how a dog can make such an empowering change. So, when she retired, she became a speaker and fundraiser for the charity.
For Canine Partner’s 30th anniversary year, she had lots of dates in her diary for talks and events, but sadly these were cancelled due to the country going into lockdown. So Bev turned her hand and her sewing machine to making face coverings, offering them for free, but with a gentle nudge to donate. She has now raised a fantastic £1,000 and has also spread the word about our work by inviting people to watch our video of Sally Whitney and her canine partner Ethan.
Bev is still being asked for masks so will keep sewing, and she is also looking forward to getting back out into the community to share her enthusiasm for Canine Partners. Thank you Bev for all your hard work and commitment!
Fundraise for Canine Partners
If you feel inspired and fancy fundraising, visit our Fundraising page for inspiration.
As a person with a disability and wheelchair user, and seeing the effect of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic through her work, Kelly wanted to raise money for Canine Partners, as she recognises the huge difference an assistance dog can make to someone’s life.
Kelly has been shortlisted for her own assistance dog and was going through the application process when COVID-19 began to spread. As part of her application, she had previously visited one of our training centres and been amazed by the dedicated staff and aftercare that Canine Partners provides. Spurred on by the thought of not being able to progress and be partnered with a dog, Kelly decided to take part in The 2.6 Challenge, which was created to make up some of the money that would have been raised by runners in the London Marathon and to help save UK charities at a time when fundraising is more difficult.
Like many of our amazing supporters, Kelly knew that people may be struggling financially during these uncertain times, and originally set a goal of £100, but she smashed this target in 24 hours and raised over £600!
Kelly says, “The chances are that there will be even more people with acquired disability in the post-COVID era because of the long term health effects of surviving the virus , so your services will be needed more than ever… We can only imagine the detriment of others with more significant disabilities than myself of not being partnered because of a lack of funds. This made it even more important for us to help.”
Why not take on a challenge for Canine Partners?
Get inspiration and find out more by clicking here.
We are extremely grateful for the donation, which will contribute towards our costs of training and providing assistance dogs for people currently on our waiting list.
The Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company, Michael Prideaux, said:
“In addition to the Goldsmiths’ Charity Company’s work fostering and supporting the craft and trade of the goldsmith, silversmith and jeweller, the company continues to support charities working across a spectrum of critical issues.
At the start of the decade running up to our 700th Anniversary in 2027, we committed to spending £70m over the following ten years to strengthen the trade we serve and to improve the lives of those in London and around the UK.”
Our Trusts and Grants Officer, Sara Read, said this grant will achieve the objectives of the Goldsmith’s Company as it will be a direct benefit to those Canine Partners serves, helping the charity to train more dogs for people with physical disabilities to live with greater security, comfort, dignity and independence in the coming years.
