When Julia’s House hospice won the Healthcare and Medical Research category at the Charity Awards 2012, it kicked off a chain of events that chief executive Martin Edwards could never have imagined.
At the evening ceremony, we were asked to keep our speeches to just four words. This was probably supposed to be ‘thank you very much’. But as I was the designated driver, responsible for rounding up four by-then fairly well-oiled nurses and getting them all home again, the four words should have been ‘Dear Lord, help me…!’ But after voicing my thanks, off-stage I spoke with the lady who had presented the award, the bestselling cookery writer Annabel Karmel. Knowing nothing whatsoever about cooking, I steered the conversation onto Julia’s House and invited Annabel to visit our hospice in Dorset. When she later did, I asked her to become a patron of the charity.
A few weeks after that, Annabel found herself in a room with Samantha Cameron. Samantha offered to stage a reception at 10 Downing Street for our charity.
This duly took place in 2013. It proved to be the draw for a number of influential potential supporters to attend, including the film director Guy Ritchie, who lives on the Dorset/Wiltshire border. During the evening he spoke with many of the children and families whom we help, and later offered to help with our dream, to build a children’s hospice for neighbouring Wiltshire.
It took a while to organise, but in 2014 Guy hosted a fundraising event at his home, which raised nearly £1m. Among the A-list guests were David Beckham, the Crown Prince of Bahrain, and the world’s top box-office star, Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr. Guy then persuaded Robert Downey Jr to back the appeal and by early 2015 Robert, via a worldwide raffle of the chance to join him at the Avengers film premiere in Los Angeles, had raised a further $2m.
Soon we had raised enough not only to build a Wiltshire children’s hospice, which will open in 2017, but also to nurse children in their own homes in the county, which has already started. Those families are battling truly heartbreaking circumstances with their child, which places family relationships under enormous strain, and we are providing them with the best possible care, respite and family support.
So we went from Annabel, to Samantha, to Guy, to Robert, to major new children’s services. Could anyone have predicted this chain of events? No. But the Charity Awards are so prestigious that winning makes good things happen.
And at each stage in the chain, the credibility of winning the award meant that these people, who protect their reputations carefully, felt that they could trust Julia’s House.
We are of course just one cause among many who have benefited from the awards, enabling us all to help many more people as a result.
Martin Edwards is the chief executive of Julia’s House – and a 2016 Charity Awards judge
