2021: what a YEAR!

For many of us, the last year (and more!) have been incredibly challenging. Here at From Me to You, that's so exception, but there have been some incredible silver linings - mostly in the form of the amazing support we have received to make sure, lockdown or no lockdown, we can keep delivering beautiful cards and letters to those living with cancer.

So, what are the highlights that we want to shout from the rooftops, along with a big THANK YOU?

In 2021: 8,362 letters were received and sent. When we first began our Donate A Letter programme in 2017, we received 550, and in 2020 we got 7,334 so to send an additional thousand plus is amazing! This total includes the record-breaking number of Christmas cards and letters - 1,888 of them were received via our letter outlets and direct to those going through treatment at home during the festive period. Of course, we can't get any of our letters out to those living with cancer without a little help with some stamps. A whopping 185 of our community donated stamps across the year!

On top of this, your (and our) fundraising campaigns and events helped even more. We had donations from approximately 1,050 of you incredible people (so many donate anonymously, so we do a little estimation here!). Across the year, we've had some brilliant and inspiring fundraisers. Kareena fundraised whilst she wrote 100 Christmas Cards for us raising over £800. Dinah created a 100 card challenge earlier in the year, writing 100 postcards for the Captain Tom anniversary that raised over £500. Liz Maguire's birthday fundraiser - 28 letters for her 28th, raised over €1000, and we had over £500 from lots of birthday celebrations across the year.

We've loved getting to know so many of you, the little bits of your life you share with us and our recipients whether that's writing alone or joining us for one of our many events last year. Despite half a year in lockdown, we managed to hold online letter writing workshops every quarter. It was also great to get to run our first hybrid in-person and online workshop for Expedia & VRBO, whilst we also held workshops for other organisations too including American Philatelic Society, Inverness Soroptomists, Yes To Life, and Surrey Hills Soroptiomists.

Of course we can't also forget the other events that further raised awareness of and fund for From Me to You. Letters Connect held 11 letter writing workshops with all proceeds donated to us: over £1000 through the year. We were also able to mark World Cancer Day with another event, and hold Big Letter Write in October with a fantastically BIG online workshop, and both events gave us the opportunity to hear directly from letter recipients of the Donate A Letter programme.

Raising awareness also means getting our (Brian and Alison's!) faces out into the media world, and we've had such a wonderful response to all of our appearances over the last 12 months. We've been featured in The Telegraph, on TDTV News TV, had so much coverage for our Big Letter Write including appearances on BBC Radio stations across the country. Podcasts also play a big part in how we share what we do, and big highlights were having Brian's letter read out on Me, You and Big C, and getting featured on Davina McCall's Making The Cut. Both led to so many new writers and recipients signing up!

Postcards got a complete revival in 2021. We loved running the postcard design competition with Spotlight PostBox to find this winning entry! And getting to be together in-person for World Postcard Day was made even more special with our event at the Postal Museum in collaboration with PostCrossing.

Our team has kept on growing, and the people who have helped us keep creating this service to those living with cancer and our letter writers need to be named and thanked! This year we've welcomed two new Board members - Anne James and Liz Kentish. Our Donate A Letter team has grown to include Bea Emmerson, Patricia Barnett, Tina Marriott, Ruth Cramer, Brian Barnett plus a team of Duke of Edinburgh students who help with packing. Marketing and communications his now handled by Anna Gill and Lexi Radcliffe-Hart. We've been supported in our projects by Lucy Hind, Colleen McCallum and Jill Goehringer, and in Finance by Lesley Jepson. This year is starting off with the first of many celebrations when we launch our new website - thank you to Jess Lea Wilson and Ellie Pinney for their design inspiration.

Last but not least, two feats that felt almost impossible to imagine at the start of 2021 for our fearless co-founders. Alison not only survived her 874-mile year-long running challenge, but Alison and Brian's book From Me, To You was picked up by publishers Spellbound for publication in Feb 2023.

There is so much more to come...