On Saturday 18th May 2018 to celebrate what would have been Steve’s 32nd birthday weekend we gathered our friends and family together and held a BBQ and did a raffle to raise further funds for CRY.
It was a very successful event which was completely overwhelming. Initially it was more about remembering Steve and celebrating him as opposed to a fundraiser however it was a perfect opportunity to raise further funds for CRY.
My sister Louise suddenly had an idea of a raffle, at first I wasn’t too sure however when Louise, my best friend Kelly-Ann and I shared Steve’s story and told companies all about Cardiac Risk in the Young we were astounded at the genuine heartfelt response. Suddenly I was selling tickets so fast it was hard to keep track! I was keen to keep the prizes to mainly centre around a car theme as Steve was so car mad, but I quickly realised it was then more targeted to a specific group of people so we opened it up and had more family activities as well.
My family and friends along with Steve’s friends – some of which had dropped their plans and travelled a long way – all came along on the most beautiful hot sunny day, it was perfect.
Having all of us together made it really feel like Steve was still here! The day was full of laughs (and lots of alcohol – a whole wheelie bin full of empty bottles) and we celebrated until the early hours.
The most special moment of the day was when my sister announced she had a surprise for me – she had arranged for 32 helium balloons in steves favourite colours! Louise, along with a few others, escorted them out into the garden and some of us held one whilst a special song played and we all counted down and let them off! Tears streamed down our faces as we watched the balloons float up together into the sky. It was an emotional but amazing moment!
A few minutes passed and it seemed like the balloons in the sky created an ‘S’ shape. We were all very proud.
In total with very kind donations on the day and proceeds from the raffle we managed to raise £1,211.82!!
I would like to say a very special thank you to the following people and companies as without them we couldn’t have made such a special and successful day:
Dennis Prince at Euro Car Parts in High Wycombe for donating such a fantastic selection of car related products.
Ian Basden at Mr Clutch Autocentres head office for arranging a voucher for a free silver service and MOT.
Santa Pod Raceway for their kind family ticket donation.
Odds Farm Park in Beaconsfield for donating a family voucher.
Kew Little Pigs in Amersham for donating a ‘meet the piglets’ voucher.
Andrew at Slims Detailing for the fantastic car cleaning products.
Simon at Classic Ford magazine for providing another array of car related goodies.
Leighton Buzzard Railway for donating vouchers.
Kimberley at High Wycombe Sports Centre for a huge selection of family based vouchers.
Tesco in Slough and Tesco in Gerrards Cross for the trolley load of champagne, wine, kids toys and other gifts along with Gail Gibson for collating them and creating the most beautiful hampers.
Sarah Pengelly for the Boogie Bounce vouchers.
The lovely Bob Vincent and everyone involved at Your Print Solution Ltd in High Wycombe who created the lovely (massive) ‘Steevo’ banner for us.
Also local independent people; Sue for vouchers for her Yoga classes in Naphill, Jade for her beauty voucher, Charlie for various vouchers for Hair at home by Charlie Brown.
A very special thank you has to be to Paul Krawczyk who is head of Marketing & Communications at Snap-on UK. Being a mechanic Steve absolutely loved anything Snap-on and even referred to himself as ‘Snap-on-Steve’. I was in tears at the heartfelt response of this lovely man. Paul very kindly arranged lots of snap-on branded items including clothing, signed WRC frames and ceramic money boxes along with a very special pair of limited edition giant snap on pliers!
Lastly a huge thank you to all of my family and our friends who helped and came along and made the day absolutely fantastic and every single person that donated and purchased tickets!
Sarah-Jane Ridgley
