Miles of smiles - an important appeal from the heart

I know its been nearly 3 months since I've been blogging here, but there's time for updates in the future - right now I really need your help, to enable a very special little boy get the care he truly needs...

Back in June I wrote on here about little Miles Griffiths and highlighted the charity that providing support for him - this week I got news from his grandma of an extremely worrying development in his care.


Please, please read and show your support by signing the petition at the link below - thankyou so much

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/keepmilesinfootprints/

http://www.causes.com/causes/534650?m=4d513973





Hi Paul. I'm contacting you to ask if you would be kind enough to help my family again (!)......As you may recall I have an 8 year old grandson, Miles Griffiths. He currently lives in a childrens nursing home, Footprints, in Canterbury, Kent and has been supported by the wonderful Charity Kent Kids whom you highlighted on your blog. Social Services then stepped in to help financially.


In their infinite wisdom (for reasons of economy ) Social Services have now decided that Miles should be placed in foster care and have lined up totally unsuitable foster carers over-riding my daughter and her husband's wishes. Whilst these foster carers are very pleasant people, they have no experience of caring for a severely mentally and physically disabled child. Miles is recieving excellent care at Footprints, he is well, happy and settled. It is nothing short of cruel to disrupt him and he would simply not understand what was happening to him.

Miles cannot speak for himself so we are acting for him, he is not an unwanted child, he is much loved and cherished by his family.


We have launched a petition called Keep Miles At Footprints.



Please, please consider signing this petition and if you are a Facebook member, joining our cause.

Links below:-

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/keepmilesinfootprints/







Original Blog :

No matter what kind of day I've had, there's one thing that's always guaranteed to bring on instant happiness.


Every time I see my little boy's face light up with wonder, beaming a huge smile back at me, suddenly all the troubles of the world just melt away.

1) Miles of smiles miles-of-smiles.org.uk



You may well have seen the link on the right hand side of this blog as I first featured this charity a month or so ago after a fellow writer on dooyoo told me all about it as it provides much needed care for her grandson.

Kent Kids Miles of Smiles was founded in March 1993, with the sole aim of spreading some sunshine into the lives of sick and disabled children. It's a small regional British charity that has really struggled for funding during the recession, so I'm more than happy to give it any extra promotion that I can.


The lady in question kindly gave me her permission to publish an extract from the deeply moving message she wrote to me - I think you'll agree it's much more powerful and personal than anything I could write here myself

I just wanted to mention a charity very close to my heart, Kent Kids, Miles of Smiles. They are a Kent based children's charity, who have supported my young grandson, Miles Griffiths, for over 18 months. Miles was born with spastic quadriplegia, he is 8 this year but cannot sit, mobilise, speak or even swallow due to his condition.

He is fed via a jejunostomy tube into his bowel (as his stomach does not work) and his care needs are so great that my daughter was unable to continue caring for him at home. She has two other children and was becoming ill with the sheer hard work involved after 6 years care giving with little or no help.









We try to do our bit for the charity and support their fundraising ventures, but as you can imagine the current recession has hit the charity's donations very hard. If you would consider highlighting Kent Kids on your blog, I would be very grateful

Click to Donate!

Since my son was born a few years ago, I have been signed up to a good number of "cashback sites", which give you a share of the advertising revenue when you make purchases online through their links. In addition, on most of these sites there are a small number of daily cashback clicks, where you can earn a few pence, in some cases just by clicking on the links.

As per the ongoing theme of this blog, since March of this year, I've decided to donate all of those earnings to charity. Following a bit of research, I've discovered that there are a number of legimate charity websites out there offering "click-to-donate" links where users can click a button (generally only once per day) to generate a donation for a charity or cause.

The two that I'm going to highlight here today are the most well established, so please be assured that these are genuine links.

1) the hungersite http://www.hungersite.com/  

From the website:

"The Hunger Site was founded to focus the power of the Internet on a specific humanitarian need; the eradication of world hunger. Since its launch in June 1999, the site has established itself as a leader in online activism, helping to feed the world's hungry and food insecure. On average, over 220,000 individuals from around the world visit the site each day to click the yellow "Click Here to Give - it's FREE" button.....Since its inception, visitors at The Hunger Site and shoppers at The Hunger Site store have given more than 671 million cups of food."

Martin Lewis at http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ writes

"3.6 - just a number? You may suspect an interest rate or price, yet it's much more important than that. Every three point six seconds someone in the world dies of hunger, and three quarters of the 24,000 daily deaths are children under five years old. Yet there's a way to feed them which won't cost you a penny; it's called The Hunger Site."


The site has set up a number of sister sites to help support breast cancer treatment, child health, literacy, the rainforests and animal rescue. All of these sites can be accessed by selecting the individual coloured tabs.

2) Freerice  http://www.freerice.com/

This is another amazing web site. This time it's not just a simple click through - this is a very clever website that seeks to pass on a little knowledge, as each visitor answers some straight-forward multi-choice questions in order to earn grains of rice.

According to wikipedia " As of May 2009, FreeRice has donated more than 60 billion grains of rice (roughly 1,700 metric tons or 3.75 million pounds". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeRice



And last but by no means least I want to share with you a truly remarkable campaign which you can become a part of , right here and now.

Whilst on our recent cruise holiday, on a day trip in Rome, having been lucky enough to have just enjoyed one of the most memorable meals I've ever had, sampling the very finest of Italian pizza , pasta and ice-cream, we were on our coach heading back to the ship. I happened to see a poster which really made me stop and think.

It was for this campaign http://www.1billionhungry.org/magicdarts/  Please, please take a look and if you use my link with the magicdarts on the end I get to be able to track anyone who signs up as a result of this.

The words speak for themselves - 1 billion people hungry - I'm mad as hell - Watch the video clip by renowned British Actor Jeremy Irons.

Its a global petition that will be presented to the United Nations in October 2010. As of tonight there are already 199,237 signed up from across the globe - please be the next one. 
 
You really can make a difference.

June's donations

Once again apologies for the less frequent blogs these days -it's a tough balancing act at the moment with family and work commitments but I'm certainly not about to start walking away from what I've set out to do.

This is always my favourite part of the month where I get to share the details on my latest round of donations of my on-line earnings. This month, I've managed to collect in another £30 via payouts from surveys and quidco cashback, and I'm very close to reaching a couple of other thresholds.

I've decided to split the donations 2 ways between these 2 extremely good causes

1) British Heart Foundation

Another good friend from the dooyoo review sites Tim Webb has just followed in the footsteps of Ivor's epic journey from London to Brighton, this time using pedal power. 55 miles cycling in a single day is some going though ( I did a 40 mile ride for BHF a few years ago and even though the finish line was less than half a mile from my house I had to be taken home in a car!) so congratulations to all involved in the Stamford Lions group and I hope they can achieve the target of £5000

Please take a look at

http://original.justgiving.com/thestamfordlions

About the charity:

The British Heart Foundation is the nation's heart charity.

Every day they save lives, through pioneering research, providing vital information to help people reduce their own heart health risks, campaigning for change and supporting and caring for heart patients.


Charity Registration No 225971

The Football World cup - making the most of a truly global gathering

As I'm sure many of you are well aware, the 2010 Football world cup starts this Friday in South Africa.

In these often troubled modern times, as all of our daily lives are in some way affected by the global economic turmoil, climate uncertainty and ongoing conflicts, for me the chance that only presents itself every 4 years to unite with football and sporting fans from across the planet is not to be missed.

Whatever your interest in the sport, so many people from totally different cultures and countries sharing a common interest - that is always special

Since as long as I can remember, it's been a part of my upbringing - from Argentina 1978 every 4 years to the present day, its provided some of the most memorable sporting moments I've witnessed. Each country has their own unique story to tell, and for England ever since that one iconic triumph at Wembley back in 1966, its largely been a tale of promise and hope along with plenty of heartbreak.

In line with the continuing theme of this blog, this year I want to look outside the pure sporting drama that will unfold and take a look ways in which we can make the most of this global coming together, and harness the true spirit of humanity and community at it's very best

Last night, I was priviledged to watch "Soccer Aid"

The brain child of UK pop superstar Robbie Williams, it features a charity match on behalf of UNICEF staged between England and the Rest of the World, with each team comprising of a number of celebrities, presenters, actors as well as a sprinkling of true footballing legends.

This year's match marked  the 3rd running of the event, (previous versions in 2006 and 2008) and featured international greats like Zinedine Zidane, Luis Figo and Ryan Giggs as well as homegrown English legends such as Shearer, Sheringham and David Seaman.

The oh so predictable eventual result that England lost on penalties was let's face it utterly irrelevant - the value of the funds raised, to buy the likes of simple Malaria Nets - it's simply priceless

Please take a look at the website at
https://socceraid.unicef.org.uk/ and make a donation if you can.

No doubt during the tournament the British tabloid press in particular will be looking to ride the wave of popular support and then find any angle they can to rip into the England team the moment things start to go wrong. Over paid and priviledged players that underperform - it's a very easy line of attack.

I wonder how many people out there are aware of the http://www.teamenglandfootballerscharity.com/ - I strongly suggest you take a look.

Bobby Moore the captain of that victorious 1966 team embodies the very essence of bravery and skill, and having tragically lost his life to cancer, it's truly inspiring to read about the foundation that lives on in his memory.

One final site I'd encourage you to take a look at is http://www.homelessworldcup.org/. This extraordinary annual gathering has been running since 2003, and the next one will be in Rio De Janeiro in September 2010 where 64 nations will be taking part.

As described on the website it "is an annual, international football tournament, uniting teams of people who are homeless and excluded to take a once in a lifetime opportunity to represent their country and change their lives forever. It has triggered and supports grass roots football projects in over 70 nations working with over 30,000 homeless and excluded people throughout the year.

The impact is consistently significant year on year with 73% of players changing their lives for the better by coming off drugs and alcohol, moving into jobs, education, homes, training, reuniting with families and even going on to become players and coaches for pro or semi-pro football teams.

You can also link up with the Homeless World Cup with social networking sites on Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, and Youtube, so please take a look and show your support.















Whichever nation finally gets to lift that golden globe on July 11th, we can all be winners if we get involved and give what we can.

Thanks for reading!