  As you are probably aware from our home lunches and raffles, Colchester Rugby Club raises money for four local charities within our community. There are; Holiday for Heroes Jersey, Headway Essex, The Tom Bowdidge Foundation and RFU Injured Players Foundation. Over the past year we have raised a total of £5,000 which has been equally shared among them. We had guest speakers from three of our charities attend our Sponsors' evening last week, where we heard a bit more about what each charity does. In case you missed it please read below about where your money goes and how as a club we make a difference.  

Holiday for Heroes Jersey; Holidays for Heroes is a Jersey based charity whose aim is to provide a week's holiday on their beautiful island to, any past or present member of H.M. Forces injured in mind or body, whilst during or resulting from their service. Since its foundation in 2008 it has provided almost 2000 holidays.

  Headway Essex;   Anna Smith attended with Bruce, who gave a moving and very personal story on how Headway Essex had helped him. Headway Essex is an independent charity that provides support for adults, with acquired brain injury, their carers and families throughout Essex. Their key aim is that adults with acquired brain injury can live as independently as possible and fulfil their potential, having carers to support them to manage their caring role. Headway Essex rely on fundraising to provide their service, which is delivered through their Community Support Team and at the Headway Centre in Colchester.  There have a Colour5k run taking place on Saturday 15th July. Please see leaflet attached for more information.

  The Tom Bowdidge Foundation;   The Tom Bowdidge Foundation works on projects that provide clinical, practical, financial and emotional support to help teenagers and young people cope with their cancer diagnosis.  The support the Foundation gives can make a real difference, for example two recent grants of £2,000 each have allowed terminally ill teenagers to go on a final holiday with their families, as little as £400 can buy them new clothes because their cancer has made their legs swell up.  They have also funded the creation of facilities in Colchester Hospital that provide rooms that a patient can use where they have access to a Smart TV, a bed for a parent or friend to be with them or simply enough chairs so that they are not alone when they are in hospital.  Finally they are currently funding a major research project into teenage cancers with specific reference to sarcoma research.They believe this is the only research project of its kind into teenage and young adult cancers.  All the donations and support received goes to benefit those teenagers and young adults with cancer  

The RFU injured player foundation; The IPF provides support and information to those who sustain catastrophic injury as a result of participating in rugby union, to empower them to lead as full and independent life as they are able to.

They also work with all stakeholders to reduce the risk of these and other injuries in the game.
  As you can see, all the money you donate at our lunches and events goes to helping our local community make such a big difference and help to keep them going.

Thank you for your continuing support to enable us to raise such a large sum of money.