As you know, our headline charity for 2024-2026 is the Isle of Wight Branch of the Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Association. We are delighted to confirm our second year of support with a further £10,000 donation, and to announce the new fundraising initiative for this year.

Following the success of last year’s fundraising, which principally funded the FreedomTravel initiative – and was enabled by your generosity – this year we want to focus on how to enhance the home lives of all those on the Isle of Wight who are affected by MND.

It’s all about increasing enjoyment, inside and out. It’s about allowing individuals and their families and carers to enjoy life, not just function. With our second donation of £10,000 this year, alongside your generous support, our running total is currently over £22,000! We would love to reach £25,000 by the end of this year so we sincerely hope you will support us once again in raising money for this worthy and necessary charity.

Together we can make it happen.

We want the purpose of this year’s fundraising to go beyond the practical challenges of living with MND and instead look at how lives can be improved with more bespoke support. We recognise that while grants are available for certain home adaptations, if those adaptations become the defining feature of the home, or life in general, everything can become significantly less homely. All this can affect not only the person with MND but other family members and carers. This year’s funding won’t ignore the practical challenges of living with MND but will focus on wellbeing and how to improve the mental load that inevitably accompanies this health journey.

So funds raised through 2025 will primarily go towards helping people enjoy their homes and any outside space they might have, including covering adaptations not provided by other grants. For example, funds could help pay for a cleaner or handyperson to keep the home shipshape, or provide white goods, a new tv, tv subscription package, or any items that could make everything more comfortable such as a new mattress or armchair. Enhancing any outdoor space could include accessibility adaptations such as doors to the garden, transforming steps into a slope, changing gravel into a hard surface, or perhaps covering the cost of a gardener.

Knowing your home and garden are taken care of can bring peace of mind but the funds might also be used to help individuals feel more ‘like themselves’ by covering hairdressing appointments, manicures, massages, the chiropractor or chiropodist, whether at home or with transport covered if needed.

Carers’ wellbeing will also be supported, enabling them to have a little ‘me time’, by perhaps covering the cost of an activity or pampering session, enabling them to take up a hobby or join a class (also covering the cost of any additional care that might be needed). Mealtime preparation can be tiring at the best of times so funds raised could also allow for food delivery, such as from HelloFresh.

We are so grateful to all of you for your generous support of last year’s FreedomTravel initiative and for making it so successful. It was really well received, made a huge difference to people’s lives, and will continue to be provided. Read the letter of thanks received from the Isle of Wight Branch of the MND Association below.

Please help us raise as much money as possible, on top of the £10,000 each year, for the Isle of Wight Branch of the MND Association. Visit our Just Giving page to donate.

For more information, please visit the Isle of Wight Branch of the MND Association.

Letter of thanks received from the Isle of Wight Branch of the MND Association

‘A diagnosis of motor neurone disease is a frightening thing. Recently, public awareness of the condition has mushroomed – a very good thing indeed for fundraising, but even more frightening than before because media images of the effects of the disease tend to be overwhelmingly dark. Those images are real, but they are not the whole story.

After diagnosis, people’s reaction is to concentrate on coping. The world suddenly shrinks. All attention is on managing day-to-day living inside the home and hospital or hospice appointments.

The Motor Neurone Disease Association is there to support those daily needs, but also to open the world up again. People with MND can still get out into the world- and the world can come to them.

This is where the Rouse Ltd partnership has been invaluable. With your help, we have been able to encourage and persuade people to visit friends and relatives and go on trips and outings: on the island, to the mainland, and even further – and not to fear that travel costs put this well beyond their reach. You also help close friends and relatives come to the island to visit their loved ones.

Your support is helping to transform islanders’ lives, and we are truly thankful.’

Chris Lund – Chair, Isle of Wight Branch, MNDA