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Do you ever just find yourself standing, thinking, wondering, questioning how different your life would have been if your baby had lived?

I’ve found myself doing just that these past couple of days. Still getting on with the tasks in hand but constantly wondering how my life would have changed had Nayely survived.

How much would she have looked like her brother and sisters? Would she have been loud and boisterous? Probably.

I would give anything to know what type of character my little girl would have been. Anything to hear her call me Daddy. To witness the connection she would have had with her mummy. I would give anything for those moments.

So if you find yourself lost in your thoughts just think, there’s a reason that your mind has taken your thought process there. Embrace it, don’t be afraid to daydream about what could have been.

In short, it’s an exhausting, stressful and demanding process.

I assumed that coming up with the initial idea would be the easy part and then the hard work would begin. That’s not necessarily the case. Sometimes the idea comes easily but putting the personal spin on it is difficult then other times it’s the opposite entirely.

Let’s look at some examples of fundraising I’ve seen recently.

SKYDIVING. Whilst I accept that it is still an exhilarating experience for those involved, it’s been done. Sooooooooo many times.

MENS BODY WAXING. Given that there are probably nearly as many men as women waxing through choice this as a fundraising idea no longer seems to shock people into donating their hard earnt money (not even if the wax is in the most intimate of areas).

MARATHON RUNNING. Even this isn’t seen as a big enough commitment to the cause any more. It’s running 26 miles for goodness sake. That’s committed if you ask me.

So what can we do?

We decided that we needed to take an event that already had a reasonable uptake and SCALE IT UP.

HENCE MERRIOTT VILLAGE CHARITY SALE TRAIL.

With the help of the original organiser we have attempted to scale it up.

How much work was it? MUCH MORE THAN WE EXPECTED THAT’S FOR SURE.

The first planning meeting was pretty much the only relaxed part of the process as we sat and discussed our ideas over a pint.

THEN THE WORK BEGAN.

Creating leaflets and getting them to the printers.

Organising the bouncy castle (for adults and children)

Organising what items we were going to sell and who was responsible for monitoring it.

Buying catering equipment, food, drinks etc.

Chasing participation.

Appealing for raffle prizes.

Finding an ice cream van.

Trying to make alot of stuff fit into our garden.

Delivering the first batch of flyers, getting the most painful blisters safe in the knowledge you had to repeat the process the following week.

Creating the maps for the sale trail.

The list is endless.

SO WHY BOTHER?

To be part of a community, to support each other, to continue to work towards our goal, to achieve our dream. For people to know our daughters name and for her legacy to provide support to children who suffered the way our children did when their sister died.

WE WILL SUCCEED. NO MATTER WHAT IT TAKES.

It’s like having a second full time but without the added bonus of wages. It’s relentless. No sooner have you finished one event and you are onto the next one. Sometimes we are planning one event not having completed the first.

We have a small team of volunteers who are an incredible help and support both emotionally and practically. To those people THANKYOU.

If you would like to be part of our select team please do get in touch.

If you have any fundraising ideas and you would like to help us bring them to life then let us know.

Thanks for reading. ♥

Put simply – IT’S HARD!

So how do the big charities generate so much money?

They use the money you donate to direct their marketing to people around you, they will use your email address; which you willingly gave them with your online donation.

They will then use this information and your Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts to engage your friends and people who have the same interests or shared experiences.

However before they even start using your money to generate more money they pay those at the top. All the £250,000 per year salaries of CEO’s. This isn’t my idea of how charity works, this is business.

Your ‘goodwill donation’ in some cases is only putting 5% into the cause. Once wages, salaries, expenses and advertising are taken into account.

Just a quick example of people creaming alot off the top of charitable organisations

In 2019 Nick Moakes who is Chief Investment Officer for The Wellcome Trust took £4.64 million in salary and bonuses. That was an increase of £1.3 million from 2019.

Another example of this suggests that the CEO of UNICEF collects $1million per annum plus benefits and even lists a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce on his expenses account.

When we set up the not for profit bank account for Nayely Adelpha Foundation we were advised by the bank manager that we should be looking to take a salary of between £25,000 and £50,000 each as charity founders. Just for setting up a charity in memory of our daughter.

So why is it so hard for small charities to succeed? Simply they are squeezed out by the money invested in big charities. This can be seen in their marketing campaigns.

A 30 second advert during Britain’s got talent costs £55,000. Factor in recording, acting, studio time and it’s probably closer to £80,000. How is it possible to compete with that?

If we use these figures in a real life example then the 30 second Macmillan ‘Brave the shave’ advert that was broadcast into your home once cost nearly 40 times more than our #GoBaldForBabyLoss event made this year.

So as we have no budget or finances for advertising we ask again for you to realise the importance of likes and shares. These are our free advertising. Our only advertising.

Here’s a brief overview of some recent posts and their results.

7 shares 3099 people reached

0 shares 85 people reached

6 shares 2670 people reached

10 shares 4259 people reached

1 share 206 people reached

I think it’s clear from these figures that shares really do mean a lot to us.

When you give to Nayely Adelpha Foundation whether that be donations, volunteering, liking, sharing, attending our events or shopping with us at our online charity shop you can be assured that you’re not lining someone else’s pockets. Every penny towards the foundation is purely to support other families when they need us.

Everyone who works with Nayely Adelpha Foundation is a volunteer who gives their time and their skills for free. They do it for Nayely. For her memory.

We firmly believe that charity is about what you can give to others not what you can take.

Thanks for reading.

When we very first set up Nayely Adelpha Foundation it was our aim to break the stigma around babyloss, have those uncomfortable conversations and to promote people’s right to grieve however they deemed fit.

Nayely Adelpha Foundation was set up initially to leave a lasting legacy for our little girl, to help children in the same situation as our eldest daughter and to support anyone who needs us.

As I’m sure you are all aware none of this comes for free. That’s where you, our supporters come in.

Each year we run an event titled #GoBaldForBabyLoss. This is when we call on our supporters to #gobaldforbabyloss

This year we have been blessed by Anita who is going to have a full head shave. Anita who is affectionately know as ‘Anita with the long hair’ currently boasts locks measuring 32 inches in length. Once she has #GoneBaldForBabyLoss she will be donating those incredible locks to The Little Princess Trust who make wigs for Children suffering with cancer.

I think you will agree as you read this piece that it is an incredibly selfless thing that Anita is doing.

Words will never be enough to convey how incredibly grateful we are to Anita for volunteering to do this.

Anita you have no idea how much this means to us, I’m getting choked up just writing this piece.

THANKYOU, THANK YOU, A MILLION TIMES THANKYOU.

If you wish to give to Anita’s fundraising efforts then please click the link below and give what you can.

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/anitadaleyheadshave?utm_term=m6MgAb4ny

This is a question I keep asking myself over and over again.

Is it fear of judgment? Is it the fact that baby loss is still such a taboo subject? Is it something else entirely? Following on from my last blog post about how important shares are to our page I checked the tools Facebook give us to monitor interaction.

One share about a post that was about how important sharing is. The irony.

So now I feel like I need to delve a bit deeper. What makes people share? How do we engage with people about such a delicate subject? How can we show people that despite being the parents to a child who died we are here to help others.

Alot of people don’t realise that Nayely Adelpha Foundation was set up to help us manage our grief, to do something positive to help other people who have experienced loss, as a parent, grandparent, friend or sibling.

We rely on Nayely Adelpha Foundation to help us cope. It may seem strange to say that by helping other people with their grief we are more able to manage our own thoughts and feelings.

Yes, we sometimes get caught out by our own grief and have to lean on each other but this is normal. It’s normal to feel these emotions.

The thing with sharing content is that if people aren’t sharing it then others are seeing it. So please just a share every now and then would be appreciated, you have no idea how much that means to a small charity like ours.

Thanks for reading

Nayely’s Parents

As we all know social media is just that, it’s designed specifically to be a social exercise. A place where you can share virtually anything. Your deepest feelings, a picture of your dog, your unpopular opinions or even just exchange hellos with your nearest and dearest.

Ultimately it all goes back to SHARING. Even if sometimes people have a tendancy to OVERSHARE.

Now we’ve used the tools Facebook provide to have a more in depth look at the posts we have made previously. Do you know what stood out to us?

SHARES MEANS VIEWS.

VIEWS ALLOW PEOPLE TO FIND US.

PEOPLE CAN FIND US WHEN THEY NEED US.

WHEN THEY FIND US, WE CAN HELP THEM.

Basically what I’m saying is that if you see a post on our page, hit the like button, leave a comment (4 words or more helps) if you wish but most importantly HIT THAT SHARE BUTTON.

Our social media posts don’t get seen outside the page if our current users don’t interact with them.

PLEASE HELP US OUT. EVEN JUST A LITTLE BIT.

Thankyou from Nayelys Parents.

I started reading this story and my heart began to hurt for these parents, by the end I was broken.

Use the link below to read it for yourself.

https://www.huffp.st/Y1Qg2ME

Following Nayely’s death I wrote a lot. I wrote all the time. No one else got to see all that I wrote. In fact most of it never got past a scrap of paper on my bench at work. Some got written, read through, cried over and then thrown away.

I know now that it was a mistake to just throw those pieces of paper away. The feelings that inspired those words, those words that contained my thoughts and feelings – simply discarded. I’m regretful for that now. At the time it seemed like the right thing to do. Now – THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE.

That’s why I’m writing this post now. One, because I want people to understand the power of the written word and two, just how much you might miss those words when you’ve discarded them.

I’m going to write more, I’m going to have a notepad, I’m going to write all my thoughts and feelings down, I’m going to store them safely. I want those memories back, even though they were mostly sad thoughts and feelings. I want them. They were mine. Only mine. I started to write to share with others. Then I got selfish. They were mine, why should anyone else have them? Now I know, if I had shared them then I could go back to them. I was selfish now they are gone.

I want to write more, I will share my thoughts and feelings with you. I’m sorry for being selfish.

Although what I write sometimes is hard. Hard to write, hard to read, hard to share. It will be brutally honest at times and I won’t sugarcoat it for anyone. That said I will also share my positive thoughts with you too.

Anyway I’m waffling, so until next time.

Thanks for reading.

Nayelys Daddy

How can you help us?

As it is Small Charity Week. I thought I’d post to let you know how you can help Nayely Adelpha Foundation.

Social media.

Since we started Nayely Adelpha Foundation, some people approach us feeling guilty that they can’t help the charity because they cannot offer us their time as a volunteer.

Our response is that you can always help in a small way, you can start simply by talking about us.

We will not be offended if you talk about us behind our backs: please do. Every time Nayely Adelpha Foundation is spoken about there is the opportunity to let people know about our work. Conversation and word of mouth are vital to our success.

Share the things we do on social media, we are quite active. Engage with us.

Did you know it helps our posts get seen even more on Facebook. 

Even if you react to it with a ‘like,’ ‘love’ or our new favourite the’ hug/cute’ emoji. If posts aren’t reacted to, Facebook will think no one cares (we know that’s not the case) and Facebook will actually start hiding our posts.

As a not for profit organisation we rely on fundraising to keep us going.

Unfortunately, we have lost out on money during the Coronavirus pandemic and we believe that the need for our services is going to increase further so your donations will be needed even more than ever before.

If you would like to make a donation to Nayely Adelpha Foundation via PayPal I’ve left a link below, just tap the link or copy and paste it into your browser.

DON’T FORGET TO SHARE IT TOO. 😊

https://www.paypal.me/NAYELYADELPHA

Monday 20th April Mark’s 4 weeks since Britain was put into lockdown. In these 4 weeks (and before) many lives have been lost to coronavirus. We know it will be a long time yet and many more lives will be lost before we are rid of this virus and so we have decided that starting this Monday, every Monday at 8pm we will be lighting a candle in memory of those lost, in support of those who have lost, no matter the age of the people dying they all have one thing in common, they are all someone’s son or daughter.

Please join us in lighting a candle and share photos with us.

If you have lost someone then we welcome you to share a picture of your loved one.

Loss has never been more lonely…………….. but we are still here, still willing to listen, understand and support you in anyway possible at this difficult time.