Throughout the year Lightfoots Solicitors will be hosting various fundraising events for Sands and this page will be kept up to date with the latest activities.

29th November - we hosted our annual Christmas charity event for the families of Thame at our High St office in the evening, coordinating with the Thame Lights Switch On. We raised over £660 with our prize tombolas, lucky dips, cake sale, Christmas craft sale, and with the help from our fabulous Christmas elf volunteers. The cash donated by the public at this event is going to be doubled by the Big Give initiative so we actually raised £1,233.68 (+£23.75 Gift Aid) for Sands in total!

9th-15th October 2024 - Lightfoots were official Sands Babyloss Awareness Week Champions. Staff will be taking part in the Ribbon Run to raise funds for Sands and wearing pink & blue to raise awareness. On 15th October Lightfoots staff took part in the Global Wave of Light on social media.

15th-19th October - Lightfoots sponsored the Thame Art Crawl. We displayed amazing local art in our Thame High St office and had collection tins for voluntary donations to Sands.

Lightfoots volunteers have been busy this year with our Lightfoots stall selling homemade bakes and running lucky dip raffles at the Princes Risborough Town Festival, Thame Community Market, and Thame Food Festival!

On Saturday 22nd June 2024 a team from Lightfoots Solicitors completed the Mud Monsters Run. The Run took us across muddy fields, up steep hills, over/under/through 45+ obstacles including mud craters, climbing walls and tunnels. We have raised over £300 so far.

On 1st December 2023 we hosted a Christmas charity event for the public at it's High St office in the evening, coordinating with the Thame Lights Switch On. Our Christmas event raised over £600 - thank you to our Lightfoots elves, staff who donated gifts and made treats, the Mayor who was our first customer, and all the families who joined in and donated.

Lightfoots staff wore pink and blue for Baby Loss Awareness Week and some took on the Ribbon Run on 14 October 2023.

A team from Lightfoots took part in the Chilterns Ultra Challenge 2023 on Saturday 23rd September, running or walking 50 or 25km through some of the Chilterns finest countryside.

Lightfoots had a market stall selling staff homemade bakes to raise money for Sands at the annual Thame Community Market on in August 2023 and August 2024. Both were a big hit! Our first event raised over £500 - a huge thank you to everyone who took part and donated!

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Sands, the stillbirth and neonatal death charity, operates across the UK: supporting anyone affected by the death of a baby; working in partnership with health professionals to ensure that bereaved parents and families receive the best possible care; and promoting improvements in practice and funding research that could help to reduce the loss of babies’ lives.

We depend on the amazing energies of our supporters to raise the vital funds that we need to deliver the wide range of services that we offer. #TeamSands

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This a charity close to our hearts as one of our own received integral support from Sands.

Mel's story...

In 2020 Mark and I were so excited to begin our journey to become parents together.

In the midst of Covid 19 I went for my 20 week scan, with Mark having to wait in the hospital car park. I was nervous, with two previous pregnancies and one ending at 24 weeks due to genetic complications, the fear quickly turned into tears of joy when they found his heartbeat. Then after a silent 5 minutes, that felt like hours, I was told something wasn't right with our boy and we needed an urgent referral for more testing. I then had to make my way back through the hospital to the car to deliver the news to Mark.

Weeks of appointments, tests, consultant visits, geneticists, Mark having to wait in the car park and me having to remember all the information and relaying it to Mark followed. Time stopped for us as we lived from one appointment to the next.

At the beginning of August, Mark and I were told by the geneticist that Harry was unlikely to make it and that our pregnancy journey had to come to an end.

At 1.02am on 7th August 2020, Harry Joseph David Oxley was born sleeping. We said hello at the same time that we said goodbye.

The support offered by Sands while we were in the hospital was support we couldn’t have done without. We were presented with a memory box with keepsakes and a USB stick with photos that we will cherish forever. Harry’s teddy that comes everywhere with me in my bag. The support resources available online and via their app has made us realise we were not alone at a time that the world was so isolated.

This is our way of giving back to Sands so they can continue to provide this invaluable support to any other parents having to face this horrendous journey.

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