LAUREN'S GIFT

www.thailandstsunami.com/Laurens-Fund.html

At Lauren's funeral we asked for family flowers only.  Lauren wanted to help children with special needs - she was training to be a nursery nurse and in the future wanted to work with children with special needs.  We asked for donations in Lauren's memory, not knowing at the time where we would put the funds, but just knowing we had to do something meaningful in Lauren's memory.

Lauren died two weeks after the Tsunami, and we had fantastic support from a man called Peter Warsop, who is a voluntary Victim Support worker. When we found out that he had set up a charity fund to provide the traumatised children in an area of Thailand with a Music & Art Therapy Project, we knew instinctively that this was what Lauren would have wanted to help with. He had helped us so much and now we had a way of saying thank you and at the same time using Lauren's fund in an amazing way. 

Over a year later, on what would have been Lauren's 19th birthday we decided to hold an fternoon fundraising karaoke party in her memory.  We invited close friends and family.  We had intended to make £250 so that her fund would reach £1000, but were amazed at people's generosity that afternoon, when we realised that we had received £800, more than doubling what we already had. 

 www.thailandstsunami.com/LaurensFund2.html

In October 2006 we set up a stall at a Thai Festival in Wimbledon and had an incredible day.  We managed to raise £1500 on that Sunday.  One incredibly generous donor gave Lauren's Gift a cheque for £1000 after Ron explained to him where the money was going.  We had never dreamed that we would raise more than a couple of hundred pounds that day - it lifted our spirits so much to know how kind and generous people could be. 

Then on November 25th we held another karaoke fundraising event, which we called "Sing for your Supper".  By this time we had raised £3000 and in total we were amazed to find we had raised over £6500 after the karaoke evening.  Some of our new friends came, friends who have also lost their precious children, and some donated money even though they could not be there with us.   With the money raised we have been able to set up a small centre called "The Lauren Eley Centre for Music and Art" in a village in Thailand which had been badly affected by the Tsunami.  The children are working through the trauma of the Tsunami with the music and art they are creating.  It's something Lauren would have wanted to be doing herself if she were still with us today, looking after children with special needs as a nursery nurse, and so (in a different way) she has managed to achieve this.   


Please have a look at the above web page to see the video message of thanks from the children and from Chatchada, the lady who works with the children in the Centre.  

Thank you to all who have supported us with our fundraising in Lauren's memory.