Our Successful Caravan Appeal

Of course, this was a really major project since we had only ever asked for the odd £1,000 from our funders in the past. We started by asking for £5,000 from our local funders with a project of £25,000 for a 2nd-hand caravan. Sadly, not many came to our aid. We tried Crowdfunding but discovered that few of our members were on Facebook and/or had a list of contacts to help spread the message. It was with not very much confidence that we asked The National Lottery for £30,000 – the maximum they were allocating at the time.

To our astonishment they came back asking for more information. We had a meeting in late summer with the ever so helpful Debby Flannery who said that the Lottery were inclined to help us and felt we should go for a NEW caravan – around the £55,000 mark! After further research, we found that some of our necessary features did not exist in the ‘Comfort Range’ like a table and chairs, dishwasher and fire. We had to move into the Premium range. This moves the purchase price up to possibly £66,000. We checked this with Debby, who said ‘go for the features you need’ – bless her! This was not a done deal as they were looking for a lot more information and a few hoops to be jumped through too.

Late December (2022) we had another meeting with Debby and Karen and it became obvious that when we added £9000 for decking to the £66,000 it was becoming altogether too pricey. We revisited Sandy Bay as soon as they opened the office in the New Year. We managed to get the whole committee to come and we were shown two 2nd hand caravans, the first a Swift Loire and an almost 3-year-old ABI Windermere in immaculate condition. The committee instantly fell in love with this! Not only the caravan but the fact that it had L-shaped decking. With the front area but room to sit out in the evening sun at the side. Parkdean were prepared to include this in the asking price of £49,495. Previously this caravan had belonged to a family whose autistic son Joseph called it his ‘happy place’. They were upgrading elsewhere on the site. I think we all agreed it would make an ideal ‘Happy Place’ for us. Parkdean were kind enough to send us this video demo afterwards if you’d like a peek around yourselves

The National Lottery suggested we should continue to fundraise but more for a ‘support package’, where we offer help with accessible travel to the Caravan Park, a food hamper on arrival and some additional entertainment vouchers, so that our members could enjoy a truly ‘free’ holiday.

So, we are asking for donations to this support package which might be valued at around £250 – £400 per family. We work with some 20 families, so we need to raise something around £5,000 annually.