We are fast approaching the 5th anniversary of Luke’s diagnosis with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy on 25th May. It’s a day I will never forget, the day my heart broke into a million pieces and the day life as I knew it changed forever. It was the day I learned my beautiful little boy, the pure love of my life would have a fate similar to that of my brother who died from Duchenne just a month past his 16th birthday. But it was also a day that I made a promise to try with everything I have to change what having Duchenne means for a whole generation of children.
Each year on our Duchenneversary I make plans to add a positive spin to 25th May, so that the date represents positivity instead of heartache, and this year I’ve decided to ask you to help me raise £5,000 for the Duchenne Research Breakthrough Fund by taking part in our £2 challenge. By raising £5,000 you will be helping me fund 140 hours worth of research. You’ll bring me 140 hours closer to saving my baby’s life, to making sure that Coen doesn’t have to suffer the pain of losing his only brother just like I did, and you will be helping the campaign to make this generation of boys the first to survive Duchenne.
We are offering to give £2 to 50 people who think they can turn that £2 into £100 for Leap for Luke and you’d be surprised just how easy it could be. Here are just some ideas to help inspire your imagination 😊.
1. Ask a local business to supply a prize, purchase a book of tickets and hold a raffle.
2. Penny Raffle – Use your £2 to buy a book of 500 raffle tickets and envelopes. Put 1 of each ticket numbered from 1 to 500 in an envelope, ask friends, family, colleagues etc to buy an envelope and they pay the number of pennies on the ticket e.g. if theirs is ticket 1 they pay a penny if its number 500 they pay £5 – £5 is the most anyone will have to spend. Ask someone to sponsor a prize and you raise well over £1,000
3. Coffee morning at home – Use your £2 to buy a pack of buns, ask friends to come around and to bring some cakes, biscuits etc. Have a get together with friends and family and place a donations box in the centre of the table and ask your friends to make a small donation before they leave
4. Car Boot Sale – Have a house clear out and use your £2 towards the entry cost of a car boot sale and donate your earning to your £2 challenge – or better yet organise a car boot sale of your own if you have somewhere to run it and use your £2 towards ink for printing posters.
5. Get the kids involved – As your kids to draw keepsake pictures for family. Use the £2 to have them laminated and ask family to buy them.
6. Sell your coin – Make your coin the new trend to have. Give your coin a special name and ask people to buy it so e.g. you sell it to a friend for £2, the sell it to their friend for £2 and son on until 50 people have bought the coin and you have your £100.
7. Host a pub quiz – Organise a pub quiz night in your local. Use social media to promote the quiz and use your £2 to print off answer sheets.
8. Ask a business to donate £100 – If you know a business owner who is looking for a charity to support why not ask them to contribute and use your £2 towards the cost of travel to the business?
9. Give it Up – Ask colleagues, friends and family to give up something for a day and to donate the money they would have spent – you’ be surprised how quickly the money from those cups of coffee and bars of chocolate add up.
10. Bag Pack – Ask your local supermarket if you can have a bag packing day, gather a few friends to each send an hour and use your £2 towards travel to the supermarket (big supermarkets usually have these booked months in advance so choose a small supermarket in your home town where it is likely you can get a date quickly and travel costs are minimal).
These are just a few ideas but we’d love to hear some of yours as well.
Thank you for considering the £2 challenge, people like you help to change the world by giving families like mine hope. Hope has become a life line for me, it is hope that keeps me going every day and that gives me the strength to fight for my boy’s life. Thank you for giving me that hope.
I look forward to hearing your ideas to make this Duchenneversary a positive one 😊.
Duchenne & Us 