All Categories - Play2Give

Play2Give Founder Awarded MBE in New Year Honours

12/31/2020

Stock image of an MBE medal. A date for Andrew's investiture is yet to be confirmed.

Andrew Baker receives MBE in Her Majesty The Queen's New Year Honours

We are today delighted and equally excited to share some brilliant end of year news that our Founder and CEO, Andrew Baker, has been named in the New Year Honours 2021 for his services to charity receiving the royal seal of approval with an MBE from The Queen.

We are proud to announce that Andrew is now officially a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) after his tireless fundraising since the age of 14 has been recognised by Her Majesty.

In 2003 with a dream to raise at least £500 at St Birinus School in Didcot to help fund the building of the £30million Oxford Children's Hospital, which opened in 2007, to say "thank you" back to the medical teams who helped, cared for and treated him throughout childhood, Andrew has dedicated half of his life to helping others.

He embarked upon his fundraising mission as a year 10 schoolboy to give back for his treatment originally inspired by brain surgery he endured aged 12. Now, Andrew, who was born with a brain injury has now raised over £280,000 in almost 19 years of dedicated fundraising - thanks to the support and help of the local community including his old school.

From everyone at Play2Give, we would like to thank you all for your continued, loyal and wonderful support to all that we do as a Didcot-based fundraising organisation, continually helping us to change, transform and save lives across Oxfordshire, which is what we are all about.

Andrew adds that his "MBE" is a tribute to everyone involved in his charitable work. We extend our thanks to each and every supporter and volunteer of his team past and present.

Adding his congratulations, MP for Wantage and Didcot and Patron, David Johnston, wrote: "I am a proud patron of Play2Give and am absolutely delighted to see Andy get this well-deserved recognition. Andy is a local hero and at a young age had already raised more money for charity than most adults do - I am so pleased to see him get an honour that celebrates his contribution to the community."

Many congratulations Andy - your MBE is well deserved and we couldn't be more proud.

Andrew will hopefully attend his Investiture at Buckingham Palace at a date later this year and we sure you will join us in extending your congratulations to Andy.

Oxford Mail: Didcot's Play2Give founder to be awarded MBE
Wallingford Radio: Local man awarded MBE
BBC Radio Oxford: Hear Andy's New Year Eve chat with Fleur Ostojak. Listen here
The Times: 2021 honours: Covid champions who went the extra mile

15 Charities and £15,500 in 2020

12/28/2020

2020 and 15 charities. Countless individuals, thousands of gifts, clothing packages and over £15,500 raised!

Further to our post yesterday regarding yet another successful fundraising year for us despite the impact of Covid-19 against us, we share how your support has helped benefit our local community.

We are delighted to share that 15 charities all benefited from our efforts this year thanks to the generosity and wonderful support of our local community.

The charities who all benefited were Oxford Children's Hospital and Oxford Hospitals Charity, Headway Oxfordshire, Sobell House Hospice, Ronald McDonald House, Oxford, Be Free Young Carers, Didcot Foodbank and Footsteps Foundation. Home-Start Oxford, Home-Start Southern Oxfordshire as well as helping to fund a dream holiday to Disneyland for nine-year-old Yasmin Howes from Didcot being treated for bone cancer, alongside Markers for Mindfulness, SOFEA Community Larder, SSNAP and Style Acre also all benefited. The Barnados Viking House in Oxford as well as countless families and individuals all receive a helping hand from us.

From two virtual football card sweepstakes to raffles to 30 in 30 challenges, the first Didcot Mini Festive Market we held earlier this month, to our second Danceathon with the Angels Performing Arts Didcot in early March, a cakes sale at Didcot Parkway, virtual quizzes, Non Uniform Day proceeds from St Birinus School and donations from several Milton Park companies over the year to a lucky numbers game and four Oxfordshire residents sponsored challenges, to providing magical pamper hampers and clothing packages you helped us to help others.

The continued generosity of our local community in Oxfordshire means that the lives of so many from children and adults including those with disabilities, children and families in hospital to the vulnerable with brain injuries, terminal illnesses to young carers and many more less fortunate have in many ways all been changed transformed and saved.

We say an enormous festive thank you!

Whether it's pounds raised, or gifts given out this Christmas with our sixth successful "Sleigh2Give" present drive, each penny and every contribution helps widely.

We look forward to 2021, when hopefully we will be able to be back doing what we are best at, events and lots more initiatives to raise thousands more pounds and all important awareness and support.

We look forward to the continued wonderful support to our fundraising organisation in 2021.

Sleigh2Give delivers thousands of Christmas gifts in Oxfordshire

12/24/2020

By Rebecca Whittaker - Oxford Mail

Thousands of Christmas gifts have been donated and delivered to less fortunate children, thanks to Didcot's answer to Father Christmas.

Play2Give founder Andrew Baker, 32, has been running the Sleigh2Give campaign for six years.

Read full story from Oxford Mail

Milton Park donates Christmas event money to Play2Give

11/16/2020

With Milton Park's usual Christmas events having to be cancelled this year due to events beyond their control, this year the usual festive celebrations on the park this December isn't able to happen, but instead we are delighted that they are supporting us with a donation.

The Milton Park team felt strongly that instead it would be good to donate the money that would have been spent on hosting their annual Christmas market, wreath-making workshops and other festive events to two deserving local Didcot charities, including our very own fundraising organisation.

Alongside SOFEA we are honoured to be receiving a significant donation to help support our Christmas campaign, "Sleigh2Give". The donation of £2,500 towards our sixth Christmas present appeal will help us spread cheer, joy and smiles to local children and families less fortunate this Christmas, including families supported by Home-Start and individual families in Didcot who due to the financial implications of Covid-19 can't afford Christmas presents for their children, amongst others.

SOFEA continues to provide long-term food solutions through its Community Larders for vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals and families, especially those who are struggling financially, with poor health and isolation due to the Covid-19 crisis. From the very first Community Larder SOFEA started at the Marlborough Club in Didcot, a network of 49 Larders have been grown with over 70,000 emergency food boxes distributed out during the first lockdown, with nine larders and almost 10,000 food boxes in South Oxfordshire.

With Coronavirus impacting all of our fundraising events and campaigns such as our traditional annual Sleigh2Give affected this year, we are delighted that thanks to Milton Park's very generous Christmas donation we will be able to help as many beneficairies as we can this December with presents to help make the most special time of the year so magical for so many.

A very huge thank you to Milton Park for their very generous donation, and we look forward to developing our relationship with the park going forward.

A Tribute to Angela Norris

11/12/2020

We at Play2Give would like to pay tribute to one of our long-time supporters, Angela Norris, who sadly passed away from complications as a result of terminal cancer on Saturday at the age of 65.

Despite poor health, Angela supported our fundraising efforts over a number of years. She collected and stored gifts for our "Sleigh2Give" campaign, helped prepare raffles and such for our stalls (particularly our big Summer Fayres), and attended so many of our events to support us, including at the Children's Hospital in Oxford where she handed out gifts to children - many of which she had personally bought for them. In July 2016, with some spare savings, Angela also kindly donated £100 which went towards our £40,000 to name our very own patient room on Melanie's Ward. 'The Play2Give Room' which was unveiled with a ribbon cutting ceremony in March 2017 was just one particular part of our fundraising that Angela was very proud of, knowing the fact that Andy, our founder, was passionate to achieve.
The picture above is our CEO Andy Baker with Angela at the Against Breast Cancer Awards last year.

Angela will always be part of the Play2Give story. She has been a supportive presence over many years for us. As a team and organisation, we will never forget her contribution to us and the people that our work supports.

We are particularly privileged that at Angela's funeral, there will be a Play2Give collection pot on display as the family's chosen cause to support. Her bereaved husband has likewise kindly donated to us in lieu of buying her flowers, according to her wishes. The fact that Angela is still supporting us, even though she has passed, and honouring Play2Give and Andy, in her memory in this way, is truly an honour for us.

Angela, we honour you and thank you for all that you contributed to our mission of changing, transforming and saving lives across Oxfordshire. You will always be one of our heroes.

Coronavirus Doesn't Stop Us from Raising £8k!

10/26/2020

Coronavirus doesn't stop us from raising £8k so far this year

This year, despite the impact of Coronavirus causing us to cancel our fundraising events in the community and reducing the amount of money that we can raise, we are amazed that we are still on track to raise £9,000 by end of this year.

Already we have managed to raise over £8,000 in funds alone, which quite simply in these tough and difficult times and for such a small volunteer group is inspiring and impressive, despite the continual challenges of Covid-19.

Many charities and groups like us have been hugely affected by Coronavirus. For example, two of our biggest events this year the annual Didcot Summer Fayre and the long eagerly anticipated return this July of our football tournament after three years were just many of our events postponed.

However, thanks to the continued incredible and inspiring support from our local community including Didcot where we are based, we are delighted to have already raised over £8,000 - and this includes individuals who have taken on the baton of individual sponsored challenges over the past few months.

The largest amount from an individual supporting our efforts so far this year comes from Andy Cox, of Headington. Andy raised over £1,130 in May from a sponsored head shave he undertook on his birthday which also coincided with VE Day. Whilst, a danceathon with the Angels Performing Arts school just before lockdown struck dazzled in a delighful £1,480 in early March - the most amount of money raised from a single fundraising event this year.

Many other individuals, groups, schools, businesses as well have all helped raise funds and virtual fundraisers have all taken place. A cakes sale at Didcot Parkway station earlier in the year contributed a tasty £178.60 into our charity totals for this year, whilst a non uniform day by one of the House groups at St Birinus School in Didcot and a donation from a Milton Park business in February also make up the total.

Oxford Children's Hospital and Oxford Hospitals Charity, Headway Oxfordshire, Ronald McDonald House, Off the Streets, Be Free Young Carers and SOFEA Community Larder have all benefited in pounds and pence from our fundraising achievements this year so far.

To know we have all been faced with since March that we have still with our wonderful community of supporters managed to raise a fantastic and truly impressive sum of money despite the impact of the pandemic affecting our organisation hugely is heart warming, and we would like to thank every single person, company, group and school who have contributed and supported our fundraising organisation this year.

With further raffles, proceeds from our mini festive market in Didcot in December and other virtual fundraisers still to come over the coming weeks we are hopeful of reaching £9,000 by the end of the year.

Gareth's 100 Miles in 30 Days

10/1/2020

Gareth Tucker

Managing Director and Owner of Elite Youth Sports, Gareth Tucker, is setting out on a quest this October to help raise £1000 for Oxfordshire based charity
Play2Give, who fundraise throughout the year for the John Radcliffe Children’s
Hospital and other good causes.

With local Charities heavily hit by covid-19, Gareth is on a mission to run 100 Miles
throughout October to help raise much needed funds for P2G. Mr Tucker will start his
challenge on Thursday 1st October, and will look to complete the 100 miles on Friday 30th
October, when he is running from Aureus School in Didcot, to Fitzharrys School in Abingdon
- where Elite Youth Sports will be holding their half term holiday camps.

The Oxford Children’s Hospital holds a special place in Gareth’s heart. During the early
weeks of his son Jenson’s life, they helped support him and his family whilst Jenson
recovered from Sepsis - a life threatening condition caused by the body’s response to
infection.

Gareth commented “Having previously supported fundraising by Play2Give, I was speaking
to the founder, Andy Baker, about how we can do more to support the work they do. I saw a
post online about running 50 miles in October and decided to really test the boundaries and
challenge myself to 100 miles! Hopefully we can help raise additional funds for Andy, and his
Charity Play2Give, to go towards the Children’s hospital - who do an outstanding job for
families from all over the UK”.

To complete the challenge, Gareth has to run over 5 Kilometres a day. Gareth also joked the
100 mile run “will help shift some of the post lockdown weight”.

Gareth will be keeping a vlog and will be posting daily updates via Elite Youth Sports Social
Media pages (Search Elite Youth Sports Ltd). To help support Gareth and Play2Give please
click on the following link: https://www.givey.com/eliteyouthsports100milerun

Thank You Tuesday - St Birinus School

9/29/2020

This week we dedicate our 'Thank You Tuesday' to St Birinus School in Didcot.

St Birinus has a long associated history with Play2Give, as it was at St Birinus that Andy, as a schoolboy, first set out on his fundraising mission to repay the Oxford medical teams who looked after him throughout his childhood.

In particular the brain surgery aged 12 was Andy's inspiration and the driving force to say 'thank you' back to initially begin raising money in 2003 whilst a year 10 pupil. It was this passion focus and drive that motivated the school to want to help Andy achieve his dreams to give back through funds, for the Oxford Children's Hospital Appeal.

After over £11,000 was raised by the very generous and wonderful school community over five years, the children's hospital that stands today was made possible, partly in thanks to the school lead by Andy's determined efforts. The school's name alongside Andrew's features on a glass plaque inside the hospital's atrium, of all those donors who contributed £5k plus to the building of the hospital.

Today, the fundraising history has never diminished within the school and they continue to support the efforts that Andy started through various non uniform days and other activities have been held over the past four years.

Andy regularly visits the school, has delivered engaging, inspiring year group assemblies, meets with students, and been a special guest at the 2018 school awards evening and continually acts as a positive role model to pupils.
Cake sales, a Summer It's a Knockout Day, Christmas jumper days and other activities have been held. They (pupils and parents) have also generously donated hundreds of presents over four consecutive years towards our Sleigh2Give (which has now launched for a sixth year) Christmas campaign.

Over £2,500 has been raised for P2G so far since 2016, and we continue to be amazed and hugely grateful for the ongoing enthusiasm and heartwarming support we receive from the school to continue Andy's fundraising legacy which remains a huge part of the school's history books.

One person last year said to former Headteacher John Marston, who took over the helm of Wallingford School who also now supports us, that Andrew is "Mr Didcot" in which John agreed it was hard to argue with that statement.

We hope that Andy will continue to inspire, empower and motivate other pupils of the school to go on to help the community and achieve great strides as much as he has.

We are always appreciative and hugely thankful for every school, college, school pupil alongside groups, businesses and individuals who come together to help support our incredible fundraising organisation, to help us to continue changing, transforming and saving lives across Oxfordshire for charities like the Oxford Children's Hospital.

So, on #ThankYouTuesday we pay an extra special tribute to St Birinus School, and of course to everyone who helps us to make a real difference with a massive impact all year round.

Superheroes Bootcamp launches sixth Sleigh2Give present campaign in spectacular style

9/29/2020

Mr Incredible, Andy, and MP and Patron David Johnston, with the gifts donated as part of Superheroes Bootcamp towards the sixth Sleigh2Give present appeal

A Jedi Master, Hulk, Lady America and more heroes descend on Blewbury Park to raise gifts for sick kids.

On this #CharityTuesday we couldn't let it pass without paying a special tribute to a bunch of fitness minded energetic ladies and gents who literally flew in superheroic donations with a special bootcamp on Sunday.

Sunday saw around 15 fitness minded individuals take part all dressed up as caped crusaders to help raise presents for children less fortunate, and through a brilliant charity bootcamp, helped to launch our "Sleigh2Give 6" campaign in style.

Mr Incredible, Captain and Lady America, Batwoman and more all took over Blewbury Park, in an hour's energetic, lively and fitness fun filled session, led by the Incredible Hulk himself, Sam Brookes Personal Trainer, with the help of two other local PTs.

The force was strong in this fundraiser as hundreds of presents was the result, mainly through the efforts of Jennie Featherstone, who took on "Sober September" as a way to raise sponsorship for our sixth Christmas present appeal.

The gifts, all destined for children and their siblings in hospital, and other less fortunate children including young carers in Didcot, was raised as part of Jennie's fabulous effort, in keeping September dry without any touch of alcohol, through the generosity of gifts donated by the parents of young talented dancers, and those taking part on Sunday.

Jennie, who is principal teacher and director of the Angels Performing Arts Didcot is no stranger to keeping off the booze and succeeding, as she always chooses Play2Give to support in her challenge each year to stay sober for a month, and in the process use her sponsorship as a way to collect all new toys and other gifts.

Our amazing friends at the Angels do lots of fundraising with us, and events we have done together over the past few years have included two danceathons, the sell-out Didcot's Got Talent Show in 2019 amongst others. The Angels also perform at the annual Didcot Summer Fayre and more. They opened up our masquerade ball in style last September.

Even our local MP for Didcot and Wantage David Johnston came along to show his support on Sunday, cheering everyone on. Unfortunately he was unable to partake as he is still on crutches due to an injury he sustained in August. David is a proud Patron of ours. He became our Patron in February, after meeting Andy at Parliament at the end of January.

Sunday's donations was a wonderful start to our sixth festive appeal, and a brilliant launch in style of "Sleigh2Give 6".

We would like to extend our thanks to Jennie for her support in taking on, and achieving, Sober September for us, once again, and to everyone who generously donated as part of the collection. And, another huge thank you to everyone who took part sweating their socks off on Sunday, and of course to Sam, Kamil and Mariama for leading such energetic fun and lively socially-distanced and covid safe sessions.

Since our festive spin-off, "Sleigh2Give" was created in 2015, around £120k worth of presents has been raised, collected and distributed to a wide number of local charities and individual children less fortunate.
We look forward to more support from the wider community with "Sleigh2Give" this year so that we can spread more cheer, joy and smiles this Christmas.

#CharityTuesday

Draycott Engineering revs up with a £250 donation

8/8/2020

Play2Give gets tuned up with an amazing £250 donation!

We are delighted to be selected as the latest winning Charity of the quarter by Draycott Engineering in Didcot.

Thank you to all the staff who nominated us and to the customers who voted for us through the token scheme over the past few months to win the £250 donation.

Andy popped along yesterday afternoon (Friday 7th) to their HQ on Rich's Sidings for the giant cheque presentation and we look forward to working with the team going forward.

We rely on the generosity of businesses like Draycott Engineering to help us with our continued amazing charitable work as a fundraising organisation in changing, transforming and saving lives across Oxfordshire, which enhances and impacts the lives of many charities and local people in so many ways.

Live in or around Didcot? Give the team at Draycott Engineering a call or pop in for all your car needs whether it's for maintenance, MOTs or any vehicle related issues. With trading for nearly 16 years they have a great reputation for friendly, reliable and trusted service.

We can't thank the company enough for their fabulous support.

Andy receives a cheque from Draycott Engineering for £250 as a result of winning the quarterly donation through the most tokens