Thank you and welcome to The Evie Dove Foundation
It is a year since Evie passed away, and we will spend time remembering her today as we do every day.
We remember her smile, her cheekiness, her kisses, hugs and kindness and feel blessed to have enjoyed precious time with her, particularly when she was poorly, thanks to the amazing medical care she received at King’s, The Royal Marsden and the QEQM in Kent.
Thanks to such amazing help from friends, family and new supporters the Foundation created in Evie’s name has raised more than £90,000 in its first few months. So many of you have got involved raising money through crazy challenges, runs, walks, swims, cycles, ski dives, a huge NHS webathon and more – and we would like to thank each and everyone of you for your unwavering support.
The Foundation held its first Christmas party in December, and through incredible raffle and auction prizes, so kindly donated by our community, and many very generous bids, we raised £40k on the night – which is simply amazing, we were totally blown away by everyone’s generosity.
The Evie Dove Foundation exists to raise funds to help fund training and development for those working in paediatric care, allowing those with the key values of compassion and kindness to progress their career and so help more sick children and their families. The Foundation has already teamed up with King’s College Hospital and the East Kent Hospital Trust and in January the fund was launched at both Trusts. We are hoping for the first successful applicants through both of those organisations to be announced in the next few weeks.
On the important topic of sponsorship, it is with great delight that Katie, Edward, the Trustees and I can announce our first sponsorship. The first successful applicant to The Evie Dove Foundation fund is Cuba Parris, a wonderful young man who looked after Evie at the Royal Marsden in his role as Healthcare Assistant. Cuba spent so much time with Evie and our family while Evie was unwell and made a huge difference at such a difficult time. Cuba has gone on to study for his medical doctorate at the University of Sheffield and we are delighted to announce that the Foundation, due to your generosity, has been able to award £10,000 in funding to Cuba to help cover living and accommodation expenses over the next year. We look forward to supporting many more NHS staff who work with sick children in the months ahead, all in honour of our beautiful Evie.
2023 is the first full calendar year of the Foundation and we are already planning a number of important events.
We are making plans for a golf day, a family walk in the east Kent area, and a second and bigger Christmas party, held close to home at the wonderful Marleybrook House venue in Preston, Kent. More news to follow on all these events.
Many supporters continue to dedicate their own events and challenges to the Foundation. We are so grateful for people who put in these sorts of efforts to raise such valuable funds in our early days of establishing the charity. We have adopted an excellent fundraising platform, Enthuse, and you can create your own individual or team fundraising page very easily. Just get in touch with us if you are thinking of dedicating an event to the Foundation and you will have our full support.
We’d also like to thank the many business and corporate supporters who have been so generous this year. We now have a dedicated page on the website to you both to say thank you (Sponsors) and we also have a page with examples and ideas of how other organisations can get involved to support – Partnerships.
We have a great stock of T-shirts, carrying Evie’s favourite phrases such as “Will do boss” and “You do you” – pick yours up from here T-Shirts
While today is a notable moment as we mark a full year since beautiful Evie’s passing, we intend to now communicate on a regular basis via a newsletter and hope you remain happy to receive our emails and spread the word about the Foundation. We can’t believe how much we have achieved in such a short period of time and know that above all Evie would be so proud that her values of kindness and helping others continue in her legacy.