Less BUT More, dare to dream…

By Andy Stevenson

I’ll be honest, after the year we’ve all had I thought the Big Give Christmas Challenge would totally bomb this year. I’ve never been more glad to be wrong.
This is our 11th year of taking part and it’s become a huge ‘feel good’ event for our families, their friends and connections. They literally save all year for this chance to double any donation they make to Reverse Rett through the Big Give website.

Every year we’ve hit our target and then some.

This year was always going to be different and it’s turned out to be an amazing ‘different’. More people than ever before have donated and by a long way. For example last year we raised £75,160 with 93 donors and in 2015 when we raised £159,096 it was done with only 117 donors!

After 24 hours this year, 196 people have doubled their money, it’s simply mind blowing! This is the biggest team effort of many big efforts from our supporters.

The truth is this year’s Big Give has given me plenty of sleepless nights and a few nightmares thrown in. In one of them we only raised £1500 and I was running around like a headless chicken in full on panic mode!

I’m ecstatic that the fears proved unfounded and if the challenge stopped now, this very minute then I’d be celebrating like I did when Liverpool won the league after 30 years till about March.

BUT it hasn’t ended yet….there’s still time to reach a target that seemed totally out of reach.

I just donated another £2 this morning turning it into £4.50. If we all ask everyone we know we can reach this target. Stipulate that you want £2, not £10 not even £3 just £2, the price of a coffee that most of us are no longer drinking.

We have until Midday on Tuesday 8th December to reach the target, it can be done but only with a huge, team effort.

I never wanted to work in the charity sector, it wasn’t a career choice, but from the day my daughter, Beth was diagnosed with Rett Syndrome my love of Golf disintegrated, a lifetime of hitting a white ball including 23 years as a professional went up in a puff of smoke. For a while everything seemed pointless.

I wanted to make a difference, ease the guilt and devastation I felt somehow. It hasn’t erased those feelings, I’ve resigned myself to having them for the rest of my life UNLESS we find treatments and a cure for Rett Syndrome but it’s not a job, it’s a passion.

That’s why knowing that around £20,000 is just waiting to be scooped up is gnawing away at me…..I know many of you will feel the same.

Together it CAN be done!

You can donate £2 to Reverse Rett’s Big Give Christmas Challenge HERE