Due to the generous donations we receive from our supporters, we are able to provide grants, not just for the necessities but also to help bring some joy and fun to the lives of young people suffering from cancer.
Franchessca the Youth Support Co-Ordinator said, we received a grant from the Bloom Charity to help us facilitate a Teenage and Young Adult Christmas Family Fun Day at Clatterbridge Cancer Centre – Liverpool.
We know that young people with cancer can be isolated through their diagnosis and many hospital visits take them away from their everyday lives with families and friends. With the added burden of the lockdown periods and pandemic, young people with cancer are feeling more isolated. We chatted to the young people about a family day and as it was getting closer to Christmas, a few suggested a Christmas event to get into the festive spirit. We thought this would be a great idea and set out to make it happen.
The main aim of this event was to encourage young people to engage with their peers and try to lessen these feelings of being alone. In addition to this, we invited partnership charities and services along to advertise information and guidance on how young people can access the support that they offer. We encouraged young people to bring along families or friends that they wanted to spend the day with to try to help them feel a little more comfortable in attending too.
The event was full of Christmas cheer with lots of festive activities for the young people to engage in which ranged from arts and crafts, face painting, music, a raffle, a grotto with a visit from father Christmas, and lots of refreshments as well as a winter BBQ.
The young people and their families really enjoyed the activities at the event and every person we spoke to had a big smile on their face. There was lots of chatter and it was lovely to see so many people engaging with each other. You could see that the event enabled young people and their families to meet others going through something similar, which is what we aimed to achieve, and we managed to do it in a fun way.
Here are some comments we had from young people and their families after the event:
‘We cannot believe that the whole day was free and you had all of those activities and food for everyone to enjoy.’
‘We had an absolute ball – we were there from start to finish’
‘We had a really good time and I enjoyed the food’
‘It was nice getting out, seeing people and doing some christmassy things’
‘I’m really glad I came to the event.’
This event was a success with many young people and their families coming along. In attending, they were able to reduce feelings of isolation by engaging with others who were going through something similar to them as well as engaging in some fun festive activities. This event was vital to ensuring that young people with cancer have an opportunity to develop through treatment and beyond and without Bloom Charity support, we would not have been able to host this event. They provided vital funds, which ensured that this event was a triumph as well as coming along on the day to chat with young people about their support.
Thank you for everything, you are amazing!
