I do anything and everything to do with fundraising. I could be putting health and safety packs together for the volunteer drivers collecting the trees for Tree-cycle, or sticking loads of labels on tombola prizes for our stall at Invasion Colchester, or wrapping up prizes for the lucky dip at Firewalk, or producing QR codes and sticking them on the relevant collection pots – anything and everything that needs doing in the fundraising office and before and after events.

The first one I did was Pier to Pier in 2023. I was there on the day handing out t-shirts, doing registrations, that kind of thing before I even came into the fundraising office. That was a nice day.

My mum, Jean Brown, was always supportive of the Hospice, donating anything to the Hospice shops, putting money in pots; it was always Hospice. So I kind of grew up with Hospice in the back of my mind, but not for any reason, I don't know why she chose that, but if we were getting rid of anything, it was always to the Hospice. She unfortunately died in October 2020, very suddenly.

The reason I really got involved with St Helena, is my dad, Duncan Brown, who unfortunately died in March 2019. In September 2018 he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and gradually over time got worse. It was just around his 90th birthday so we had a big party and a big Christmas, but we knew time was getting limited

So it did mean a lot that he could stay at home. He had never been in hospital in his life, he was 90. His home was his life, his farm was outside his bedroom window, and that's where he wanted to be. It worked as well as it possibly could. It was as perfect as it could have been for him really.

Once SinglePoint and Di came along we were just so relieved because we’d never dealt with anything like that before. Nobody ever has until it's the first time, have they? And just to have someone there who knew what they were doing and could tell us what was happening, what to expect and to tell us if I get you this it will help. You don't know what help you need because you don't know what's available until someone says have this, it'll help.

Di was incredible, I know they all are, but she was the one that we knew. She was lovely and when I started volunteering, I had a trip around the Hospice with Niamh, the matron, and I went up to SinglePoint and Di was there, and she turned around and said “Sally!” and gave me a great big hug. She remembered me, she remembered my name after all this time, after all the hundreds of people she sees in different places. It was just amazing and I burst into tears in SinglePoint. She knew my name straight away, she knew who I was, and you wonder how when she sees so many people in such extreme circumstances all the time. And I'm sure they're all just the same as her. 

We kept thinking in the back of our minds that we’d like to raise some funds to help SinglePoint who had helped us so much.  I spoke firstly to Di Turner, who put me in touch with Jo Clarke in Fundraising; who was so helpful and lovely.  We decided to hold a race night in the local village hall and planned for March 2020, a year after we lost Dad.  Obviously lockdown hit, so we postponed to October 2020. Tragedy struck when my Mum passed suddenly on 1 October that year, so obviously we postponed again.  We then tried for March 2021; 2 years after we lost Dad, but still lockdown persisted.  Eventually we decided on October 2021, and it seemed fitting to hold it on 1st October, a year to the day that Mum passed, which made the event even more poignant.  We raised £15,000 during the evening and Di Turner came along and talked about SinglePoint and what SinglePoint does, and I thought then and there I just want to help.