Joe Goodlad from Theodora Children’s Charity shares the impact our support has had over the past three years, with the Worshipful Company of Butchers having donated an incredible £62,500 supporting the charity’s work helping sick and disabled children.
The Worshipful Company of Butchers has generously supported our work in the last three years, as well as in previous year. Since 2017 you have supported the work of our charity, alongside individual donations from your members.
We would like to demonstrate the impact that your generous support has had and what we have been able to achieve.
Key achievements of the last three years
- In April 2018 we recruited ten trainee Giggle Doctors to join our exciting team. They are expected to complete their training in January 2020 so we can give even more giggles to sick and disabled children in the coming years.
- We were shortlisted for a Charity Award in the ‘Children and Youth’ category, recognising the importance of our work and the impact that our Giggle Doctors have.
- Dr Flowerpot was featured on the Great British Menu as one of their NHS Heroes. The series was celebrating 70 years of the NHS by shining a spotlight on the people and organisations that make the NHS so special.
The Impact of your support
Your donations have supported tens of thousands of visits to sick and disabled children in the 26 hospitals, hospices and specialist care centres that we visit around England. With your donations, we have been able to start visiting children at St George’s Hospital, London and also increase our Giggle Doctor visits at Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital, Brighton and Evelina Children’s Hospital, London.
Every year we receive so much wonderful feedback from parents and hospital staff, here is just some that we have received recently:
"My daughter arrived on the ward today very teary eyed and nervous, with her little head full of memories of needles, pain and illness. However, we arrived at the same time as the Giggle Doctors. Within a minute they had completely captured her attention and put her totally at ease. She completely forgot where she was and thoroughly enjoyed her time with them both, as did I. You made a huge difference in a little girls world and made the hospital a much brighter place to be" Parent
“The Giggle Doctors have a great approach with the young children and the teenagers and even some of the children who are a bit quieter. I remember that one day we had a Dad who was feeling down in the dumps. He was fed up of being in hospital. Then the Giggle Doctors came and he was laughing with them for over half an hour! He told me that he had never laughed so much and he said ‘It is therapy for Dads as well!’.” Hospital Play Specialist
Thank you for all of the joy that you have made possible.
Find out more about the work Theodora carries out visit the website.