Crafting for seriously ill children and their siblings

Crafting – Can you knit or crochet? Are you a cardmaker or scrapbooker? Can you make something a child might like? Our Pals love receiving things that have had love and thought put into them.

About the charity

Post Pals is a small charity run solely by volunteers who are dedicated to making seriously ill children and their siblings aged 3-17 smile. We ask the public to send cards, letters, little gifts as well as sending them ourselves.

Vikki George (Founder/Chair) became very unwell as a teenager, she was bedbound, unable to talk and isolated but she received cards even though she couldn’t reply and this became the highlight of her day. In 2002 aged 18, Vikki was still bedbound with lots of restrictions but found she could use a laptop laying flat for short periods and had the idea for Post Pals to help children.

Vikki and 4 other teenagers set up Post Pals, thanks to a National Lottery grant via the Princes Trust. Many people believed the concept would never work, what good is a card to a child with cancer? How can someone who can’t even sit up run a charity? ‘No one will want to join or send a card to a child’ was another thing we heard a lot.

Post Pals did take off though and people saw how much the children benefitted from receiving mail and feeling cared about. We had hoped to just bring smile but were amazed when parents reported back that their children’s self-esteem was growing from feeling they had ‘Post Pals friends’ who cared about them. Parents also reported back how seeing their child receive such kindness had given their morale a boost too.

How to get involved: 

There are many ways to get involved in Post Pals and it couldn’t be easier! In less than 5 minutes you can make a child smile… and for some of the children it might be their only smile that day.

Sending post – You can send post from anywhere in the world, no matter how old or young you are. You are welcome to send something as a one off or on a regular basis. You don’t need to register, just go to ‘Find Pals’, read through the current children’s pages (we also send post to some siblings of memorial Pals) and pick a child. You can send a hand written card/note, make one or order one from sites like MoonPig and Funky Pigeon, you can also send a gift (again this could be a bought one or handmade). Pop it in the post to the address on the child’s page and know that you have made a child smile!

https://www.postpals.co.uk/getting-involved/

Our ‘3 easy steps’ show you how simple it is to send post.

1. Click on Find Pals, select a child and read their page
2. Send a cheerful card, letter, email, or even a little gift to the child via the address on their page
3. Sit back and know that a child’s day will be brightened because of YOU

You can also sign up to the schemes we run. Regular schemes include the ‘Assigned Writers’ scheme and ‘Monthly Projects’ scheme. More details of these can be found through our Facebook page or by contacting us. They involve a regular commitment to send cards or post to a Pal or sibling you are assigned to. We also run an ‘Elf’ scheme at Christmas time where you are matched with a child to send a present to, and the ‘Reindeer’ scheme where you are assigned a child to send letters to from each of Santa’s reindeer!

Suitable for all ages - anyone that needs to document their volunteering hours please contact us through the enquiry tab. 

We would love to know if you get involved :)

Skills

- no specific skills required except the ability to craft items (knit, crochet, card making, scrapbooking etc)

- suitable for all ages 

- will need to post to the address given