Local Man, Mark Roberts, has once again raised a huge amount of money for the Make-A-Wish foundation. This year he has raised £854 with donations still rolling in. This bring his total to £2500 since he first began in 2014.
We sat down and spoke to Mark to find out a little more about what he did, what he does and why he did it.
“I started fundraising for Make A Wish 8 years ago in 2014, I was watching you tube and an advert came on in the middle of a video and it was about Make A Wish and it was about a terminally ill child living in a hospital in America who was contacted by the actual mayor of the City through his TV monitor in his room to help save Gotham City from a bad guy in an abandoned bank and the little boy was dressed as Batkid and went with batman in 2 Lamborghinis through the City to battle the bad guy, The video is called “Make a Wish Batkid” on You Tube. When I watched it, it gave me goose bumps and I thought that’s what I want to do with my spare time, I have amazing kids who I am super fortunate enough to be healthy, but a lot of children out there aren’t and I wanted to do the best I could to help grant their wishes. I called up Make-A-Wish and asked how I could help and became a volunteer, I went to some events 1st just for collections then in June 2014 I held my 1st fundraiser for Make-A-Wish where I raised £560. Since then I have held 4 fundraisers and 1 shop event and have currently raised near £2500 for Make-A-Wish with my most recent event raising £854 on the day and I still have donations rolling in so I may make the first £1000 for Make-A-Wish at one of my events to date. This event organising started in May this year where I started prize sourcing for my raffle, then came the location sorting which is the hardest part as you have to consider foot fall, public liability, risk assessments etc. After I’d found the perfect location I started to sort stalls making sure I don’t have double of the same stall, then food, games, music, fire brigade, guess the jelly bean, name the Teddy bear, bouncy castles, Mascots, face paints, sponsorship for any expenses (100% proceeds made at my events go to Make-A-Wish absolutely zero money goes on fees or costs) this makes it super important to find sponsorship and I am always looking for sponsors and prize donations. This years event was probably my most successful and of so happy as it means a lot to me to make as much as I can to grant these wishes. I have already started the ball rolling for next year’s event and I am having ideas for small events in between.”
“My volunteers are a massive part of my event as without them I couldn’t do them and takes people with massive hearts to be able to dedicate their day to these events and my main volunteers are my mum, dad and sister my 3 kids and my partner who are also my biggest fans/supporters.”
You can find out more about Mark’s work here at https://www.facebook.com/mrobertsmakeawish
If you wish to make a donation please contact him through the page above.
Congratulations and well done on all your hard work Mark.