How a gift in your Will could help our work
Without the money we receive from legacies, Barnardo's would reach far fewer vulnerable children across the UK. Your gift, however large or small, can help maintain vital services to vulnerable children in the future. These are just some of the ways in which your generosity could help:
- £1,000 could provide the extra support to keep a child with special needs in mainstream education for six months
- £5,000 would pay for summer playscheme activities for 400 children
- 10% of a £50,000 estate would enable one young school leaver who has no job to go on a vocational training course
- £35,000 could pay for a worker’s position for an entire year at a London project, working with young girls who are sexually exploited
- 1/3 of a £150,000 estate could help 30 families with children dealing with life limiting illnesses.
16 projects run by Barnardo’s offer family group conferencing services to parents, carer and families. We invest about £450,000 a year in these services because we believe that involving families in finding solutions to problems that are right for them is the best way to help children thrive.
A lifetime worth of love
The support we gave to Jack and his family is typical of the work that is only possible thanks to the generosity of supporters who remember Barnardo’s with a gift in their Will"
Seven year old Jack will remember making snow angels in the garden at midnight this winter.
His foster mum and dad woke him up, put a snowsuit on over his pyjamas and brought him out to play when the snow began to settle. They didn’t want him to miss out if the snow had melted by morning because Jack has a life-limiting illness and is unlikely to live to adulthood. His foster family love him as one of their own, and are helping him to pack as much as he can into his life now.
"He is a superstar" says his mum Cathy. "It is our goal in life to make every single day special for him. Jack might live only to 15 or 16, but he will have had a lifetime worth of love." The Barnardo’s fostering assessment process was long and invasive but, Cathy believes, it was definitely worth it. "The Barnardo’s social workers who did our assessment were very sensitive and let us take our time. They were very supportive." Jack was three years old when he first came to stay. He didn’t speak and Cathy and Ian were told that he had severe learning difficulties. But out of hospital and in a home situation, Jack thrived, defying all expectations.
Now he is a real little chatterbox and we all spoil him. He has gone from a vegetating boy to a blossoming seven year old."
And of the future – Cathy says that it is hard knowing what will happen, and at times she wants the world to stop. But Barnardo’s has been, and will be there to support her.
Every time Jack says ‘I really love you’, or says something that indicates he is happy, then I know that whatever happens in the future, it will all have been worthwhile."