In this video you’ll learn more about us, our impact and why we wish to improve the lives of people with blood cancer.
To help us to give every blood cancer patient the equal prospect of a quality stem cell match, and a better chance of survival, please consider supporting our work by making a monthly donation here.
We would like to give a special thank you to Carl Ikeme, Matt Murray, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Twenty5Eight who have helped us raise awareness of the need for more stem cell donor registrations, and for their support in the making of this video.
Last Sunday Race Against Blood Cancer held a donor drive supporting Flagz Mas Band at Wandsworth Arts Fringe in London, where the team worked hard to sign up more potential lifesaving donors to the blood stem cell register.
We would like to thank all those that showed up to register and to the organisers for allowing us to pitch up and engage with the community. We would also like to give a special thanks to the work of our team members Alex Morrison and Lenah Lang who continue to help those people needing lifesaving transplants.
Friday 23rd September marked the 2nd annual Race Against Blood Cancer Golf Tournament and Gala Dinner, which was again hosted at the Shropshire Golf Centre.
Celebrating the amazing milestones achieved over the last year, the day started off in the sun with 16 golf teams competing. The tournament even saw football stars Stephen Hunt, former Reading and Republic of Ireland midfielder and Peter Odemwingie, former West Bromwich and Nigeria forward, participate in the event. Once the final scores were counted, it was Lee Sandell and his team who was awarded the trophy despite a close score.
As sun started to set, the 160 Gala Dinner attendees were guided to the evening venue, beautifully decorated in white and red. Joining the celebrations were 6 nominated students from the National Citizen Service programme. After attending a workshop that the charity carried out, the students dedicated their summers to raising awareness for the charity and £450 in funds. As one of the highlight speakers of the night they left the stage to a huge round of applause.
Fundraising for the evening is still in progress with some prizes being auctioned on eBay. Items include a shirt worn by Joe Hart and signed by the whole England squad from the recent world cup qualifier against Slovakia, Sam Allardyce’s one and only match as England manager. Other prizes comprise of a framed pair of signed Joe Hart gloves and Phil Jones’ Community Shield shirt signed by the Manchester United squad including superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Race Against Blood Cancer’s 2016 Annual Golf Tournament and Gala dinner was a great success and we would like to give massive thank you to Matthew Lea Golf Academy for organising the Golf event, The Shropshire Golf Centre for hosting, our friends, family and supporters who joined us and finally, Skratch AV for providing their exemplary service and providing a world class multimedia solution.
The May Bank holiday weekend was a crazy time for our engagement team as they completed two donor drives within 24 hours and 155 mi apart!
The marathon started on Sunday evening as the team headed to Myyst nightclub in Birmingham to join eager clubbers to raise awareness of the charity.
In our white t-shirts amidst the dressed up crowds, our team definitely stood out! Response was really great though as clubbers happily interacted with us, despite having been queuing in the cold for ages. They also managed to register just under 50 new donors, the majority of which from ethnic backgrounds, making it a very successful event.
The team wrapped up just before 2 AM and drove back down to London for a few hours’ sleep but were back up and running before they knew it as they headed to the Guyana Folk Festival in Croydon.
The tiredness quickly subsided as the music and carnival feel took over and the team started interacting with the festive crowds. With live music, performance, awards, extremely good food and various stalls, it was a great event to celebrate life and get people to sign up as new potential donors. After a brief speech on stage, Alex even ran into Ram John Holder, Porkpie from Desmond’s, backstage which confirmed that it was a great day.
This was a last minute drive and the response we got was great. While dancing and festivities made it hard to register many donors, we did manage to get 26 new registers. The team will also be back for the Guyanese tea party in July where, now that we are known, we expect to see great engagement and a lot more fun to come!
Alex Morrison & Ram John Holder at the Guyana FestivalSingers and dancing at the Guyana FestivalPresentations, speakers and animation at the Guyana FestivalMusic entertained the crowds at the festival