The Announcement is close!

Can’t believe that the day is tomorrow! After knowing for 4 months it is going to be announced! 

Julie Kent MBE FLIP! Not bad for a girl brought up in a terraced house in Gloucester! Daughter of hard working parents who were givers! Dad was the first and last at the bar buying people drinks and often did electrical jobs for people and didn’t charge them & got told off by Mum! 

It’s for forming the Emily Kent Charitable Trust 25 years ago and the charity work I have done ever since. I didn’t ever think about getting something for it… I just did it!… when Emily died it was something positive, I just had to do something to stop the pain that I felt and focus on something else, so started raising money to supply equipment to help other children with cancer to make a difference for them and their families. We always had to wait a long time to have a scan to find out if the chemo was working but there was a shortage of anaesthetic equipment as children had to be put out for a scan and it seemed the most obvious thing to raise money for. Something good had to come from something so awful… and I think everyone would agree that losing a child is the worst thing that can happen to you…

And so it began, although I do remember organising a kids disco when I was about 15 at a holiday resort we were at in Cornwall. I had a portable record player and we charged the kids to come and gave it to the charity that had a collecting tin on the bar! That must have been the start of my fundraising bug!…which led to all my fundraising in Gloucestershire. 

Emily Kent Charitable Trust, CLIC Sargent, Breast Cancer and then The pied Piper Appeal, followed by Goals beyond Grass to Chairing Cheltenham Open Door and supporting the Trust in the Honourable  Company of Gloucestershire, with a few randon events for Parkinsons or the school ugandan charity.

I hope that the charity involvement at Dean Close School will continue when things get back to normal to support Family Space and invite the elderly from the Lilian Faithful Homes and Morris Court for tea and entertainment… to collect food for Cheltenham Open Door at Christmas and to teach our young people the enjoyment of giving…. not always money but your time and if possible… yourself. 

I am feeling nervous about the announcement but also excited and mainly proud…..one more sleep!