Hi, we are Matt & Helen, trustees of the Evie Dove Foundation!
Evie’s Foundation is very dear to our hearts. Howard & Katie have been friends of ours forever, and our daughter Molly has grown up with Evie and Ted as lovely friends. Losing Evie was absolutely devastating, and remains a driving force for us, a constant reminder to grab every opportunity and moment in life, and we are passionate about continuing to spread Evie’s kindness and love through the Foundation.
Helen and I are hugely proud of what Evie’s Foundation has achieved. To have raised over £350,000 and created nearly 200 heroes is way way beyond what we anticipated when we first talked with Howard and Katie about raising enough money to help Cuba get underway with his training to become a doctor. Thank you to all of you for the part you have played in getting us to where we are today.
Helen and I also believe very strongly in the principles that underpin Evie’s Foundation. In particular we are proud that we ensure that a minimum of 90% of donations go directly to funding our heroes, this is higher than the average for charities in the UK. We are also leading the charge against some of the bigger charity online platforms that apply additional fees to make a profit for the platform providers. We really don’t like this, and are aiming to help charities tread a different path.
Between Helen and I we take the lead on organising a number of events. Helen and Katie oversee our annual Christmas party, and together with Molly, Sam & Laura we organise our annual fundraising walk along the Hythe canal and Folkestone seafront. I am also our resident Fantasy Football nerd, and run the Evie Dove League. More on both of these later!
Helen also works closely with Howard and Callie, Evie’s Dad and Auntie, to assess all of the hero applications, and approve funding or otherwise. Our aim is to ensure we invest in truly outstanding, passionate, talented individuals, and that the money you help us raise goes on to help them be the very best they can be, and ultimately have a positive impact on children and their families when they need it the most.
Helen and I take the approach that every single penny absolutely counts, this is not just a cliche. Genuinely we are unashamedly frugal with charity money. For example, we work really hard every year to ensure that the walk costs nothing to organise, and are grateful to businesses like Unit 1, The Pilot, Biddenden Juice, Trophies plus Medals, The Roger De Haan Foundation, Tescos, Lidl, Spar and Asda that have helped us to achieve this. Likewise Fantasy Football also has zero overheads, and in each instance this means that every single penny donated goes directly towards creating new Evie Dove Foundation heroes.
The other key thing for us is that people enjoy being part of the Evie Dove Foundation. We want our events to be memorable, as accessible as possible with what we hope are affordable entry fees, and for everyone to have a great time. We hope that anyone who attended the walk in 2023 or 2024 will vouch for that. As a little reminder here are the instagram posts from both those days. We are here to raise money and make a difference, but we are also here to celebrate Evie and to create beautiful memories together.
Upcoming events
Big Coastal Walk & Little Canal Walk
Our annual walks return on Saturday 6th September starting at 10:00 from Unit 1.
The Big Coastal Walk is 16 miles…….you will be delighted to hear that this year there will be no extra mile! Thank you as ever to the team at Unit 1 for hosting the event, we will start from there at 10:00 and then return afterwards for pizza, drinks and live music. This year there will also be the option of a halfway stop at the Pilot on the Harbour Arm, bbq food and Evie themed cocktails will be available!
The Little Canal walk is 3 miles…….this year the route will go along the canal past Port Lympne, if you are really lucky you might even spot a few of the animals!
Check out what Louis and Bella think!
We are also delighted that this year there will be walks in Portsmouth, Oxford, Warwick, and Cyprus, these are being organised by a range of family, friends, heroes, and Evie’s mum Katie will also be leading our USA Orlando edition! A big thank you to all of you, we love that we are spreading the word far and wide.
In the last two years we have had around 250 people join us for the Kent walk, and places are filling fast again this year so if you are planning on joining us then please do sign up as soon as you can……the earlier you sign up the easier it is for us to plan for numbers on the day, t-shirt orders etc https://theeviedovefoundation.org/event/the-big-coastal-walk-2025/
As for fundraising, please remember we do not ask for you to achieve a fundraising target. Of course the goal is to raise some funds, however our view is that the priorities go in this order
- Get as many people to attend as possible. Let’s create the biggest possible wave of pink t-shirts along that seafront. We love this!
- Have a brilliant day!
- Raise some funds……amazingly over the last two years we have raised £45,000 and our view is that the fundraising will build momentum once again. All we ask of you is that you do set up a fundraising page and see how that plays out https://theeviedovefoundation.org/become-a-fundraiser/ Our experience is that you will normally find that people will want to make a donation, this might come beforehand, on the day, or even afterwards……the most important thing is to make sure you set up the page!
Fantasy Football
Do you play Fantasy Football…………………?
Or does someone in your family play and spend hours tinkering with their team………..?
Why don’t you have a go and see if you can beat them………..trust me it is very addictive!!
This will be our 4th season, over the previous three seasons we have raised almost £7,000 to go towards funding Evie Dove Foundation heroes, and we have paid out over £2,000 in cash prizes. All from playing a silly football game!!!! And we include prizes for teams that use the same squad of 15 players all season……so if you are not that engaged it does not matter, you could still win a prize for doing absolutely nothing!
The deadline to create your team is this Friday 15th August at 18:30
It is super easy to set up, I would really love you to get involved.
Make a £10 donation to the Evie Dove Foundation here https://theeviedovefoundation.org/fantasy-football/
And create your team by logging into https://fantasy.premierleague.com/
If you have any questions or are having any issues setting up your team just email me at matthew.paxton@holidayextras.com or message me on 07771 796463 and I’ll be happy to help!
Where’s Dickie?
You may remember this amazing man started walking around Britain for the Evie Dove Foundation in September 2023? We all walked from Hythe to Folkestone on our inaugural Big Coastal Walk, and then Dickie just carried on! Incredibly he has now walked over 3,500 miles, and has raised over £14,000!!!
You can read more about his adventures here: https://theeviedovefoundation.org/campaign/wheres-dickie/
Dickie will be finishing his travels at the Big Coastal Walk on Saturday 6th September, and will also be doing a variety of walks around the Kent coast in the days leading up to this. We will be aiming to join him for a few of those days, if you are also interested in joining us and him, then just let us know, you will be very welcome!
Recent Highlights
The Big Bike Ride
The Summer Solstice saw our second annual Big Bike Ride, 80 intrepid cyclists joined us for the 28 mile gravel bike route through the glorious Kent countryside. The weather was scorching hot but everyone successfully completed the ride, receiving their medal and finishers pizza! A very big thank you as always to James and Chloe from Craft Bikes and their amazing crew who make this event possible. Our aim is to put on a great day out first and foremost, offer real value to participants, and fundraise as a result. This year we were delighted to raise £2,000, which will go on to sponsor a new TEDF Hero.
You can read more about the day here, and also check out the photo gallery, thanks to Mike and Kelly for capturing the day!
https://theeviedovefoundation.org/previous-events/the-big-tedf-bike-ride-2025/
Evie Dove Foundation Afternoon Tea
June also saw our second Afternoon Tea, thanks to Mike and Callie for the loan of your beautiful garden, and to everyone who supported making tea, baking cakes, running the raffle and generally making sure everyone had a lovely afternoon. Thank you for all your support to help us raise more than £3000, which is truly fantastic, and all from eating cake!
Peking to Paris
A massive thank you to our good friend Steve Kiss who raised an amazing £10,000 for the Foundation, £1 for every mile travelled from Peking to Paris in this stunning old Rolls Royce. He and his friend Richard made their way through China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland and France. An epic journey, the engine only caught on fire once!
The Coach Quiz Night
A huge thank you Christian and his team at The Coach, Hacklinge, near Deal for running a quiz and raffle for the Foundation and to Evie’s Nana, Irene, for organising the raffle prizes and helping to make it happen. The event was great fun and raised more than £400
Los Mondiales football tournament
Thank you to Huey, Logan and Flynn, members of Edward’s football team, Woodies, who won the annual Los Mondiales football tournament representing Dover Grammar school and chose to donate the £700 winnings to Evie’s Foundation.
NFU Mutual Donation
An incredible donation of £7889 has been raised by the local branch of the NFU, who thanks to a lovely friend, Will Smith, chose to donate their annual fundraising to Evie’s Foundation. So very much appreciated and will make a real difference.
Burgess Hodgson
The lovely team at Burgess Hodgson have chosen Evie’s Foundation as one of their two 2025 – 26 supported charities – we will share news of their various fundraising events over the coming months – thank you to Sarah, Alex and all the team at BH for their love and support.
Fisher German
Thank you also to Catherine and the team at Fisher German have also chosen the Foundation as their supported charity – we look forward to hearing more about your Big 25 challenge, getting from the Ashford Office to London Office without using any means of motorised transport! Good luck!
Evie’s Birthday
Thank you so much for your continued support and for reading our latest newsletter.
We sign off this time with a message from Katie, Howard and Ted to mark Evie’s birthday
As this week (15th August) marks our beautiful Evie’s 17th birthday .. we remember our kind, happy, loving, fun times girl with so much love in our hearts..
Evie lived life to the full.. was determined to make everyone happy, to help everyone and give everything she had and more to others…
Her 13 years with us were not enough … but we are beyond blessed to have loved and raised her to be the incredible smiley and happy angel she was ..
The legacy she has left is outstanding .. knowing she has touched and helped so many others brings happiness to our souls and we know she would be so proud..
Our darling Toots.. missed by us all ..
Happy 17th birthday beautiful girl.. party hard in those stars…
Mum, Dad and Teddy xxxx
