ABOUT YOUR SPONSORSHIP

"Act as if what you do makes a difference.  It does."  ~William James

There are so many wonderful people doing amazing things for equally amazing charities, and I know that it’s hard to decide where to offer your support. Sometimes it seems when you “donate to charidee” it disappears into the ether. (I put my money in the shiny bucket, but where does it go?) And I also understand that money doesn’t grow on trees – being skintsville myself – and this is why I so appreciate every penny offered in sponsorship!

In return, then, I feel it’s only fair to let you know where your money is going.

As you know, I’m raising money for the Red Cross. I spoke to them and asked them some questions, and they were fabulous enough to answer them all. So to begin, I’ll let them sum up what they do:

“We are a volunteer-led humanitarian organisation helping people in crisis, whoever and wherever they are. We enable vulnerable people at home and overseas to prepare for and respond to emergencies in their own communities. And when the crisis is over, we help people recover and move on with their lives.”

OK, so where do your donations go?

Generally, you choose to can donate to a specific appeal. Otherwise, unspecified donations goes into General Funds, which the Red Cross will distribute wherever it is most needed. Personally I have chosen for the donations I raise (so that's your money) to go to their Disaster Fund – this is essentially a pot of easily accessible money, to be used in a crisis when the Red Cross needs to act fast. It’s good to know that’s there, right?

Great stuff, but out of all the charities, why the Red Cross?

So earlier this year, New Zealand – where I hail from - was rocked by a massive earthquake, and the city of Christchurch was absolutely devastated. (I wrote a post about this at the time which you can read here).
It was horrific. In total 181 people were killed and to date, not all have been identified. Over 10,000 houses have had to be pulled down, and major buildings were ruined - such as the 26-storey Grand Chancellor Hotel which almost toppled and now must be demolished. Historic buildings were reduced to rubble and there are sections of the city where the ground is no longer stable to be rebuilt upon. (To help paint a picture, Christchurch is the second biggest city in the country – imagine the UK's second largest city being flattened?)

Image via geoftheref

I went home to New Zealand a week after this happened – not to Christchurch, but Wellington, which itself was hit by two small earthquakes while I was there. But the Christchurch quake’s effect on the entire country was palpable. A whole country came together to help the city start on the road to recovery, but it also took a lot of outside aid and relief - from organisations like the Red Cross. Of course, they were not the only welfare charity providing assistance but they did help in a huge way. And I can tell you how.

They:
- provided first aid assistance and opened an evacuation centre for at least 2,000 people;
- distributed thousands of relief items to displaced families, including tents, blankets and water containers;
- established six clean water supply points throughout the city, supplying over 254,000 litres of water and 3,200 water containers, along with soap and hygiene information;
- offered cash grants; from bereavement grants for the families of people who died, and emergency and hardship grants for those whose homes had been damaged or destroyed;
- helped to reunite family members via the Red Cross Family Links service;
- had volunteer emergency response teams conduct urban search and rescue and door-to-door outreach, offer counselling support, and set up eight welfare centres in Christchurch; and

- staffed several Recovery Assistance Centres in Christchurch, helping people to work through the challenges they faced.

So now you know my reasons for supporting the Red Cross.
But why should you support them?

Frankly, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have friends of family overseas, and it’s so good to know that if disaster strikes anywhere that help is available and ready to go. This year alone the Red Cross launched appeals for the Japan Tsunami, Libya Crisis, Ivory Coast, and most recently East Africa. More on those here: http://www.redcross.org.uk/What-we-do/Emergency-response/Current-emergency-appeals  

And of course, the Red Cross doesn’t just provide relief abroad - half of the Red Cross' income is actually spent on provision within the UK. The Red Cross responded in such events as the July 7 London Bombings and the 2007 Cumbrian floods; they provided a Fire and Emergency Support Service; and they're the biggest provider of first aid training in the UK! Great, right? You can find out more about their UK work here: http://www.redcross.org.uk/Where-we-work/In-the-UK



Seriously – just one or two pounds of your money added to the relief pot will ALL ADD UP. And after all, none of us will ever know when we or our families ever might need it.

Please sponsor me...
Donate online: http://www.justgiving.com/claire-nelson
Or text BIKE95 to 70070

Thanks to Sophie at the Red Cross for her help in answering my questions.