We love our job and Muffin Life but it does take money to run all of our services and to let Muffin's grow and achieve it's future aims. Like many charities Muffin's are not funded by the government. You might be surprise about the amount of people we meet in our daily lives who assume that the government and local council pay us to do the our job, "so you rely on donations?" is the common reply whilst people look at you slightly quizzical and you can see their brain going "why on earth would you chose to do it?" The short answer is "well, yes we do rely on donations and we put so much time into it because we genuinely love our job" The soul reason Muffin's is able to run is because we have dedicated, loyal staff who work ridiculously hard. One of these amazingly hard working members of our Dream Team is Jo, whom I cannot speak highly enough off she is incredible and we are very blessed to have her as our amazing funding officer. Jo's job is to apply Muffins to grant's such as Children In Need, Sun Life of Canada and so on who very kindly fund some of our services. So she is the poor person who gets to spend hours reading all the guidelines and work out what we can and cannot apply for. It is not a job for everybody, some might think it's boring I would not say it was boring but it is a highly challenging job which requires a large amount of skill. On top of the work Jo does we get people, some of whom know us and some whom do not offering to run marathon's and taking on crazy challenges to raise money for our Muffin's. But the rest of the money we have to fundraise ourselves.
This means taking every single opportunity we have to raise a few pennies which can be quite tough going when you spend most of your free weekends when your not meant to be working, working. But it is so worth while when you not only know but actually see where that money is going and what it is able to do. I mean when you go from standing in a field with a change bucket to seeing our Muffin's go up a rock climbing wall how you can not feel that it is not worth giving up your day off? Give me a change bucket any time, anywhere.
As we do so much fundraising a few year's ago in the middle of the night I awoke quite suddenly as I often do now that I have Muffin's in my life and an idea flew into my head, the Muffin Mile. A fundraising event where the children we work with i.e the Muffin's could do there own race and the public can hopefully be 'inspired' by the fact that these children most of whom cannot walk are doing their best to complete a race. I remember picking up my phone and making a note of it. Ok it may not of been something that would happen that year or even in the next ten but I had learnt to make a note of everything that comes to mu mind, any little idea I note down. In any case it was my little mad idea but again Muffin's was growing at such an astonishing rate that I did not have the time to arrange such a fundraising extravaganza. But I knew that one day the Dream Team could achieve it.
It remained a little fantasy of mine for a few years that if I am honest I did not devote anytime to developing or even thinking about I just knew it would be wonderful to do. Well that was until early last year when I and the team sat down and decided we were going to do the Muffin Mile. Oh my days what had we just committed ourselves to? Well month's of planning paid off and at the end of August last year Muffin Mile was launched. It was an amazing day apart from the fact it rained all day, I mean we had a heat wave the whole week and the one day we needed it dry it tipped it down. Typical British weather but what can you do? The weather did not stop us or the public joining in what was a fantastic day and a rather emotional Muffin race where we saw our Muffin's racing to the finish line, there were tears all round! How amazingly wonderful it was to watch our Muffin's crossing that finish line, some running, some wheeling in their chairs and some crossing the line in their little walking frames. Those children made us so unbelievably proud and it goes to show, do not put these children in a box, do not say they can't and do not say it is impossible. They truly will show that impossible does not exist and will challenge anybody who tell's them they can't because these kids can!
Almost a year on and we are a few weeks away from the Muffin Mile event again, taking place on the 29th July 12pm-4pm at Chineham Village Club. We have worked solidly for months on the event. There is going to be an ice cream van, BBQ, games galore, bouncy castle, tea room and of course the Muffin Mile race which will take place at 2:45pm, the Mayor will also be attending. We have our fingers crossed for dry weather this year but should it rain we have indoor cover so no getting soaked this year, hooray! So thinking of coming along? Please feel free to join us. Many members of the public ask us "does the work you do with the children really work?" well if you are sat there at the moment thinking the same thing then we encourage to come down and meet our Muffin's and Dream team and I promise you will not regret coming along.
This event is of course to raise money so that we can continue to provide our Muffin families with as much as we possibly can and it will help us reach our future aim's. "What are they?" Well I will explain more about our future ambitions another time but they certainly are big but very, very exciting. For now if you check our website www.muffinsdreamfoundation.org you will be able to read all about it.
For now we are in the busy lead up to the event sorting out a hundred and one different things but we know all the stress, sleepless nights and evening meetings will all be worth it come the 29th July. The children we work are the reason we are so passionate and why we put so much time into Muffin's' they do definitely have it tough in life and everything you take for granted, can be a challenge for our Muffin's but they in our eyes have most certainly already won their race.
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