Tilly and Poppy also loved every minute and Tilly managed to touch many people's hearts with her wonderful spirit! Its a hard balance to strike as a parent when there is a special need that requires fundraising such as ours. How do you talk about the services and the equipment you need and the reasons behind this whilst also making clear how wonderful and special your child is alongside all the challenges. SMS is particularly hard to do this with as it does come with some extreme aspects and behaviours but getting to meet Tilly in person is the best way anyone could see that a life with SMS isn't all doom and gloom and that we are truly blessed to have such a wonderful soul to share our lives with!
Joe was a star , as we all knew he would be and the 24 hours saw duets from local musicians and singers alongside past pupils coming back to keep the early hours busy with their bands. How touching that pupils we taught when they were little tots would give up their time to come back and support us not to mention all you grown ups who have busy lives and yet took time out for us and Tilly. That just means more to both me and Joe than anyone could ever comprehend!
Our current pupils also joined forces on stage for a sing along high school musical set, operatic societies from Redditch and Pershore also added to the magic as did some of Joe's current piano pupils who were just fabulously brave and played in front of the large crowd! Wow just fantastic!!
Even Tilly joined Daddy at the piano for a little jazz set all of her own!
Of course we just couldn't have done the day without all the volunteers who did countless jobs throughout the 24 hours! They served at the bar and supplied and served cakes, not to mention cooking bacon for the bacon butty Sunday morning breakfast. Viv Holmes created wonderful flowers and a pianothon banner replica cake which surpassed anything we could have imagined in typical Viv style! Obviously the 4 hours of helping us hang the advertising banner from the bridge in freezing cold conditions had made an impact on her as the cake was unbelievable! How many cable ties did we use to keep that banner up there!!! I know Joe was touched as was I, by April, Viv's daughter staying the full 24 hours to offer incredible moral support.
The raffle also was great, with beautiful prizes donated for us by kind souls everywhere. Again thanks to our great friend Lin Rae who is so special to us we just cannot begin to say!
Local printers donated services free to create some amazing publicity for us, including the infamous banner that hung proudly on the bridge and also some huge posters around town, not to mention our t-shirts and swing banners throughout Astwood Bank.
Past pupils put their great creative talents to work and made beautiful bookmarks to sell at the event and again this is just so touching it cannot be typed in words what that means to us!
WOW WOW WOW!!! I cannot even begin to type the names of everyone who pulled this together for us! Just to everyone a great big thank you and heartfelt love.
The money we have raised will be put to such great use. We are nearing the 5 thousand pounds mark now and still have some sponsorship to collect ... how incredible is that!!! Tilly is such a lucky girl to have this support as are we as a family. I will keep the blog updated as we finalise figures but again a huge thank you to everyone involved.
Lastly a thank you to my husband whose dedication as a daddy and husband overwhelms me daily! His finale speech with Tilly on his shoulders to a crying, cheering crowd saw me diving behind the piano to hold things together! We are ALL so lucky to have you Joe! x
Life is not measured by the breaths we take
but by the moments that take our breath away
... thank you to all our friends, family and community for yet another of these moments. xx
