Doing a lot of great work for charidee, mate. Well, I'm trying! I've volunteered and raised funds for various charities for a good chunk of my life, not all Diabetes related! Some simply because I felt touched by the cause, others because the cause came very close to home. In relation to Diabetes charities, it's only the last 4 or 5 years - coinciding with my social media presence - where I've started to help out in that area.
It started a few years ago with a Stoptober fund raisers for DUK. I gave up alcohol for the month, typically a 31 day month! Why I didn't choose a non-leap-year February? I do not know. That thirsty month raised over £300 and it felt good to give something back, almost as good as that first pint on November 1st.
Without directly contributing money, I've done a few things for JDRF and still do with an involvement on their Insight panel. At the tail end of 2021, I hosted the T1 Today quiz as a part of their conference and helping out the smaller charities is equally as important as being in bed with the bigger ones, in my view, so that felt like a really nice cause to give my time and energy to.
You might remember my December 2021 blogs. All the Buy Me A Coffees from those posts were donated to three different charities, inc one which specifically helps youngsters with Diabetes in South Asia because Diabetes has no borders, why should we?
2022 arrived and so did the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Social media was ablaze with ways to help which was, and still is, an amazing sight. I decided to donate every penny from this blog to MSF to try to do what I can to help the people of Ukraine and the HCPs who are working there in unimaginable circumstances. To date we have raised over £70 and you can help with that by scrolling down to the last paragraph in this blog.
Spring... sprung? in the UK a couple of weeks ago and as the sun shone I started looking for a few new T-shirts and tops to wear in the warmer weather. Some fun slogan-laden Tees found their way into my online basket and then it occurred to me that a T-shirt or more generalised apparel store might be a fun way of raising funds for another charity. In 2018, I sold some Diabadass clothing and towards the end of that little venture I donated the profits from each sale to a couple of Diabetes charities. Why not everything from Day 1, this time?
The problem with selling apparel is everything! Order handling and processing, dispatch, losses, returns, refunds, cancellations, yada yada yada. Online retail is work, trust me. Instead of handling all those processes on my own I decided to go the semi-affiliate route and use Teemill. Teemill are very environment conscious and will handle everything apart from the design and slogans. Slogans?! I have slogans! and so was born:
Catchy name, right? I could never open a bricks and mortar store because it would need to be 400ft long to accommodate the signage.
Charidee? Oh yes! Well, each order generates a small profit. The tote bags make around 80p, coloured T-shirts around £2 and white ones around £3. Teemill send those funds after 30 days have passed to allow for returns and cancellations, seems reasonable. However, sending funds to a charity every day from Day 30 onwards is going to get difficult to keep track of. Instead, I'm going to send one lump sum payment every 90 days to a Diabetes related charity. That should allow ample time for sales to be generated and funds to be transferred. A screenshot of the donation and amount will be publicised for transparency.
What do I gain from this? I'm not paid by any charities. My reward has already been delivered to me through the help, support and friendship of the Diabetes community. I try to give that back by supporting the GBDoc community accounts and by offering mentoring to others who request it. Perhaps the charitable things will help others who I will never meet, I hope so, and that provides me with enough reward in my heart.
All that said I MUST mention that donating to charities, buying me coffees, ordering incredibly funny and fashionable T-shirts and the like should only happen if it's affordable to you. Personally, I think it's pretty horrible to pressure anybody into a financial contribution to any charity. Do what's right for you without fear of judgement.
As you might have seen, a conflict has broken out in Ukraine as Russia has invaded that country. The scenes on TV and on social media are horrifying. What can we do? Well, I don't think there is a wrong way to help if you donate to charities who are active in helping the people of Ukraine. I support many charities but one which has always had my heart is MSF. Medecins Sans Frontieres translates as Doctors Without Borders. When it comes to the health of others in disaster areas, war zones and the like then I think we all have a duty to do what we can to help and help those who directly help! such as MSF. With that in mind, all donations to me via Buy Me a Coffee and all the pennies generated through the ads dotted around my pages will be donated to MSF. I will make up the difference for the fees taken by PayPal and Buy Me a Coffee. That will run until further notice, no time frames and possibly until Ukraine is a free country again. Thank you for reading my blog.
BUY DIABETIC DAD (MSF) A COFFEE HERE
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