Charity Barrow

At a number of our young people’s forum meetings we have talked about generating a much greater awareness of the illness within the region and a number of our young people expressed hiring the charity barrow at the Metro Centre to do just that. With careful planning and negotiation with the Metro Centre we were able to hire the charity barrow free of charge for three days during National ME Awareness Week 2006.

We decided to provide information leaflets about the work of ME North East and the varying symptoms of ME with additional information as a guide for carers with useful contact phone numbers. We also were very appreciative to a number of our young members who provided handmade greetings cards and gifts. Vicky, Helen, Nicola, and Rebecca all made some gorgeous gifts with the proceeds going to ME North East so thank you again girls for all your effort and time.

The three days could not have gone so successfully without the support of our volunteers who we are extremely grateful to including a number of our young members (Rebecca, Rachel and Lyndsey). They all provided interested individuals with leaflets and support, explaining about the illness and more importantly were great at being a ‘listening ear’. All our volunteers wore our new black and white t-shirts and with our display boards you certainly couldn’t miss us. We definitely increased our profile within the North East!

Spending time on the barrow we came across a number of individuals who knew family members or friends with the illness and hadn’t heard of ME North East. Being able to highlight the work of ME North East and the support they can offer meant the world of difference to those people currently struggling on their own. Hiring the charity barrow certainly was a great idea and well done to our young people for suggesting it in the first place.