PawPals – a fabulous Twilight fundraiser for difficult times

This week we’d planned to be writing about the autumn booksale, a regular weekend bonanza organised by our friends at the Hope Association 79.  Despite the ongoing covid crisis, the event was still scheduled to take place with strict rules in place to maintain safety. Volunteers worked tirelessly in the days leading up to the weekend and the gates opened at 10am on Saturday morning. Leeanne and Mike travelled over to the Deux-Serves ready to meet up with Twilight supporters. Sadly, by lunchtime the event was closed, as that very morning new covid restrictions had come into force for department 79, prohibiting such events. A sad reminder of the very difficult times which we are all facing at the moment. The knock-on effect for associations such as Twilight is that if Hope do not raise funds in their shops and events then they are not able to make donations to all the different charities that they support.

It’s at times like these that we need to think outside the box and devise new and interesting ways to raise funds to support the Puds. With winter approaching one of the concerns is keeping all the Puds warm, especially those who are elderly or sick. The main heating source is a lovely pellet burner in the kitchen, which the Puds love to congregate around. There’s always some quilts and comfy blankets down on the kitchen floor, and it’s a favourite place for winter naps. Twilight uses about a bag of wood pellets a day, costing in the region of five euros, with discounts for a pallet of 72 bags. So, the challenge was set to raise enough funds for a pallet of pellets (try saying that quickly!). Over on social media Linda jumped into action with a special Facebook event “The Twilight Twinning Fundraise”.

We asked our wonderful supporters if their own pets would like to join in as “PawPals”. They could twin their special one with a Twilight Pud, in return for a virtual PawPals certificate. For a donation of five euros of their own pets’ “paw-ket money” we would be able to buy a sack of pellets which will enable the heating to run all through the night keeping the old and the not so well snug as bugs in a rug. This fundraise seemed to touch the hearts of our supporters and it wasn’t long before every Pud (and Puss, too) had at least one sponsor. Within a few days we’d raised enough funds to buy that pallet load!

We loved the beautiful photos of our supporters’ PawPals. In total, forty dogs and cats sent their “paw-ket money” to their Twilight chums. We thank our supporters deeply for joining in with this fun event and helping Twilight and the Puds. We’ve put together a gallery of all the PawPals certificates here.

And, of course, we still need to continue our fundraising activities. So look out for our next event, the annual Toussaint candles, Sunday 1 November on Facebook.