Looking back at 2024
Wow, what a year 2024 was for us at FMTY. It’s only when we reflect on the year as a whole that we realise how much we’ve achieved.
We may be small, but we have proved time and time again to be pretty mighty. And by focussing on what we do best, we’ve spread kindness, joy and connection to over 13,500 people facing cancer in the last 12 months. That’s a lot of letters. That’s a lot of love.
There are so many highlights, but in a charity as small as ours, it's all the little things that add up and absolutely deserve a mention too. Take a peak below at what we’ve crammed into the last 12 months.
We kicked off the year with some big projects; launching our Friends of From Me to You scheme to ensure we are here for generations to come, recording and releasing our book ‘From Me, To You’ as an audio book and launching our much-anticipated Spring letter writing competition for everyone to take part in.
Our Trustees Lesley and Lucy completed the London Landmarks half marathon (despite Lucy needing a knee op and having had her hip replaced), raising money for our work.
We also grew our Community Ambassadors team and welcomed four new ones to FMTY, helping to spread awareness of our work to communities across the UK.
Summer saw the launch of our From Me to Brew fundraising event, with lots of tea and cake events taking place across the UK - raising much-needed funds for our work. We even held an online Tea Party for those who wanted to get involved, but didn’t have the time to organise their own.
Our ‘Pop it on a Postcard’ campaign, asking for people to send in postcards from wherever they are on holiday, saw our post bags fill up with tales of ice-creams and sandy toes, as well as washout BBQs and gales!
We welcomed a new Trustee, Nathan, to the team. He brought a wealth of experience to our cause - and lots of energy and enthusiasm too.
And a family who were writing for us together every Sunday shared their experience with the media, getting huge amounts of coverage, which brought hundreds of new letter writers to our Donate A Letter Programme.
Usually our Big Letter Write campaign dominates the Autumn - bringing in bags full of letters to our PO Box - and it did, but it had the biggest boost beforehand with Alison and Brian’s interview airing on BBC Radio 4’s Cafe Hope.
We’ve never had more people get in touch in such a short space of time. Our inbox was overflowing with people from around the world wanting to get involved and write for our Donate A Letter programme and requesting letters through our Receive A Letter programme. Amazing!
And it didn’t stop there with excitement; the Autumn also saw us get out into the community and hold lots of wonderful workshops with new people and companies, visit the Robert Horrell Cancer Centre and Sue Young Cancer Centre and our partner charity, Treatment Bag.
Our Trustee, Liz Kentish was also interviewed by bespoke stationers, London Letters, bringing lots of interest to our work from fellow stationery addicts and starting our relationship with London Letters.
Well it’s fair to say that we truly ended the year on a high. A real royal high with our letter writing volunteer, Liv, being invited to the much publicised Princess of Wales’ carol concert. And unlike other guests, the media wanted to talk to Liv about the work she does for us - getting our little charity a huge amount of national media coverage on the run up to Christmas, including going on Good Morning Britain on Christmas eve!
Once again, our inbox exploded with people wanting to get involved in our work by either donating letters to us, or requesting letters from us. Wonderful! And to top it off, the Prince and Princess of Wales shared our work on their official instagram page… which has 17 MILLION followers!
But before all this royal excitement, the winter was looking pretty busy and exciting for us with letter writing workshops in Edinburgh and Leeds, a Christmas raffle in Duston, Northampton, a Christmas Fair at Expedia’s Head Office in London - and of course the main focus, our Christmas appeal, which was OUR BIGGEST ONE YET with 3,500 cards and letters donated. Just incredible - and far beyond our wildest dreams.
And because of people’s generosity with stamps and funds to buy stamps, every single card and letter was able to be posted out to people facing cancer, at home and in hospital, over Christmas.
What a way to finish 2024! Giving us the best stepping stone into 2025 and all the adventures that await us. 13,500 letters written and donated last year (usually around 10,000 each year), so even more people connected with, meaning less loneliness and isolation for those facing cancer. Hurrah! Thank you to everyone who helped us achieve this.
Here's to 2025 - to opening our hearts, writing letters, bringing smiles and spreading kindness. Let's do this. And let’s do it together.