Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

On the 5th December the Grinch (me) and his little dog Max (Lyra) will be doing a Christmas themed danceathon to raise some money for the wonderful Teams4u charity. Anyone who knows me well enough, will know how much I detest the season of cheer and how Christmas songs grate my last nerve so please help make it worth the pain! 

When you donate, add a comment about which song you would like us to grumpily bop along to. Hopefully by the 5th, we will have an ear torturing playlist and we’ll have raised some pennies for a good cause. I know this time of year is tight but maybe the thought of seeing me sweat and scowl my way through several Christmas bangers will help?!? 

I discovered Teams4u after a deep internet dive researching Christmas shoebox appeals. I needed to find an alternative to the Samaritan’s Purse Scheme that Lyra’s school wanted to use. I won’t go into too much detail because you can find out everything you need to know by looking them up yourself, but suffice to say their founder has said some pretty horrific things. As an evangelical charity, their main aim is to ‘save’ souls by targeting and converting some of the world’s poorest children to their own homophobic, anti-Islam, pro-birth version of Christianity.

It didn’t sit right that the shoeboxes, filled by children with the best intentions, would then be used as a vehicle to distribute evangelical literature and invitations to conversion style  ‘education’ courses. 

So I put on my big girl pants and spoke to the school who were good enough to listen despite me feeling like the ultimate Grinch stamping all over the kiddies generous spirits.

 Thankfully we found an alternative scheme with a charity who also fund more sustainable, long term projects supporting kids to access education across the world. The only difference was that Teams4u asked for a small contribution towards transportation costs. All very reasonable but lots of kids had already filled their boxes. To redeem my Grinch like ways, I offered to fundraise so we can send the boxes without causing too much upset for the parents and kids who had already done their bit. 

Current Grinathon playlist is on Spotify so have a peek and request your own festive choice with a donation if you can: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5z4y1lCLSNFW2Padwp0OlK?si=lAQDVnafT9O2FtpyV-KynQ

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.