Dear H4H supporter,

I have some wonderful news; we have raised £20m! That is £20million in just nineteen months since we asked the people of Great Britain to stand up and show their support for our men and women of the Armed Forces and to provide help for those who are wounded. That is magnificent, it is remarkable and you have been part of it. Thank you so much!

Of the £20m we have raised, we have already spent or allocated £13.35m on the practical and direct support of our wounded. The superb H4H Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court is being constructed and will provide state of the art facilities. Emma will be lifting the first turf of the new £3.5m H4H Wing of Combat Stress in early May. We have wounded Servicemen and women winning skiing competitions, sailing, cycling, learning to fly, getting back to a fulfilling life. Your money is being put to use and it is making a real difference.. Now.

None of your money is being used to pay for our costs. Help for Heroes Trading Co Ltd is making enough to cover all our overheads and provide donations to the charity; we are currently 106% efficient and hope to improve on that in the next few months.

There are over 1 million people in this country showing they care, doing their bit for our blokes. They are buying wristbands, singing songs, climbing mountains, holding lunches, washing cars, towing trucks, driving scooters, selling cakes; doing something to show that our Servicemen and women matter, that they deserve the very best, that they are special.

This is not fading, this is not a flash in the pan, this is growing in power and effect, this is making changes, you are making a real difference to the lives of some extraordinary blokes. Each day the number of events being registered grows as people decide what they are going to do for our wounded heroes, each day more people get involved, each day we make things better. This is good and you are doing it.

This time last year, we were busy, we were preparing to set forth on our Big Battlefield Bike Ride, we had raised about £4.5m and everyone said ‘well done but you have peaked, you can’t keep it up.’ Well, we came back from the ride and announced that it had raised over £1.5m, and then the RFU announced their H4H Rugby Challenge Match that went on to raise £1.44m. The London ball raised £1.6m thanks to the extraordinary gift from one person, then Simon Cowell called and we had the fastest selling charity single of the decade; no, we have not peaked, we are not fading away, we are no flash in the pan.

We, you, all of us, are passionate about this, we may be working hard at it, putting in the hours, pushing ourselves hard but then again, so are the blokes on patrol in Helmand. So are the medics at Bastion, the staff at Selly Oak and at Headley Court, the Chinook crews, the fast jet pilots, the ship’s crews, the soldiers, the sailors, the airmen and the marines; they are all working hard. We are all one team, one family, the men and women of the Armed Forces, their civilian supporters and now, everyone involved with Help for Heroes; we are all doing our bit.

We must keep at it, we must keep raising money, delivering the best services and facilities, doing our bit, showing we care. We want to raise another £20m urgently, we know why; we know how we will spend it. We want to see Recovery Centres for our wounded, places where they can have a chance to learn skills and then launch forward to get on with their lives. The wounded don’t want sympathy, they want to get on with a normal life, to get married, to enjoy their jobs, to be happy to feel the wind in their faces and the sun on their backs; that’s what we want and that’s what we are going to get them; with your help.

This is not about politics, this is not about the rights and wrongs of any particular conflict, this is really simple, this is about making sure that our boys and girls who are prepared to join the Armed Forces and serve our county, get the best. We can’t be there with them as they fight but we can cheer them home, we can’t stop them from being hurt but we can help them get better. We are not helpless, we are doing something, we are making a difference, we are helping; you are helping.

Keep going, keep doing your bit, keep raising the funds and we will make sure that it is spent on the practical and direct support of our wounded. Keep going; they deserve the best and we will get it for them.

Well done and thanks

Bryn

 

 

Take care
Tricia

Dear H4H supporter,

It has been a remarkable period even by Help for Heroes standards.  As we were cycling through France with 240 riders on the Band of Brothers Bike Ride, Amanda sent me a text to say that we have passed the £22m point, which means we have raised £16m since 1st June 2008! Of that extraordinary total, over £550,000 has come in over just one week and a truly staggering £1,132,097.21 in the last two weeks; we are not fading!

Help for Heroes is really starting to accelerate as people all over the country lay on their own events, Clare tells me that there are currently more than 5000 events registered which hope to raise an awesome £12m. Even if they only get half of that, there is enough to pay for another Hero Recovery House, which would be a wonderful result.

Our Band of Brothers Bike ride was a great success and if you would like to get a feel for it without the pain, go to the website and watch the wonderful videos and see the galleries that Jim and Tom have created. Having done that, if you are feeling like a challenge, then pop onto the registration page and book yourself in for the next one and get training. I won’t say what the route is just yet but I do promise that there is no shortage of ideas or enthusiasm in the H4H office.

Of the money that we have raised to date, over £13m has been used or is allocated to the direct, practical support of our wounded and we now have enough to start work on our first, fully comprehensive Hero Recovery House. The Pathfinder House will open in partnership with Erskine in Edinburgh this August and then the next, planned for Colchester, is planned to be ready by the summer of next year with others being opened in quick succession after that.

The more money you can help us raise, the more houses we can build, the more blokes we can help... it’s really very simple. If you want to read more details about what we are doing, how we are spending the money or how we managed to ensure that almost none of your donations goes to pay for our administration, then have a good look at the website… it is good reading!

Thank you so much for what you are doing, it is making such a difference to the lives of some extraordinary people and in a world where we sometimes despair of various goings on, this is something of which we can all be justifiably proud.

Well done and thanks.
Bryn

 

To read more please go to the Website:-  http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/index.html

 

Take care
Tricia