Category: General

As some of you may know, we have a daily acts of kindness calendar. When we read today’s, we started to think. It said “write down your companies 5 charitable goals for the year” Ok, we are not a company but what is it that we want to achieve from Ivy’s Gifts?

When we started out at the end of May, if we are honest, we just needed something that had Ivy’s name on. You spend months contemplating what name you want to call your baby when pregnant and we wanted people to still use her name in everyday conversation. Now a few months down the line we think we can find 5 themes running through everything we do. They are as follows:

1. To remember Ivy – everything we do is because we want to honour our promise that so much good will come from her life. We move forward with her, we can’t move on! ?

2. To have fun when fundraising! We want to encourage people to challenge themselves or use their skills. We couldn’t do this without all of your support. Every one of us is unique and have things they want to achieve or attempt. So go on; have fun and do good ?

3. To build relationships with our local community. We have been overwhelmed by local companies and schools who have shown such generosity! We hope we can promote the good that they do too! ?

4. To make talking about grief easier. Yes it can be hard, uncomfortable and nerve wracking but grief will affect all of us at some point. We know that everyone deals with things differently but we want to break the barriers allowing people to be honest about their feelings. ?????

5. To use the money raised for purposeful causes. So far, we are in the process of supporting 4 projects that will improve the lives of patients and their families at Oxford Hospitals Charity. It’s a privilege to be able to do that and we would love to continue. ?

So there it is. We are just two people who have had something truly awful happen to us. But the reason that it’s awful is that life with Ivy was so amazing! All the negative emotions we feel come from the fact that she made us feel the opposite. She is the best and we love her! Notice how we speak about her in the present tense? Ivy’s Gifts allows her to be a part of our everyday lives now and moving forward.