Sarah, Billie and Bella's glow from home story

The events are always so well organised, have such a fantastic atmosphere and are a pleasure to be a part of. We love knowing we are doing our bit in memory of Joan and to benefit other families who also need and benefit from the fabulous care of the Hospice.

This years Glow with the Flow was originally planned for the 19th June. As with everything this year, plans have had to change to ensure safety during the Covid 19 pandemic. Although some parts of the lockdown had been lifted that week, for safety reasons the event had already been postponed.

As that week began I started to feel like I needed to do something to mark it. After taking part in the event for 3 years running it just did not feel right to just do nothing, pandemic or not!

So, I discussed it with Billy and Bella who had not done the walk before as it was late at night. I suggested that we could go for a late walk locally, the same as we had been doing during lockdown – but this time we’d wait for dark, and take some Glow sticks and raise money for the Hospice in memory of Auntie Erin’s Mummy. They, of course, thought this was an amazing idea and agreed to it immediately! I ordered a big tube of glow sticks online, and found out my Glow tutu and face paint in readiness.

I worked a long day shift at the hospital that day, when I got home Billy and Bella were excitedly waiting for me to shower and get ready to go out again. We painted our faces, we cracked all our glow sticks, we pulled on our tutus and we waited for it to go dark.

We set off on our usual local walk around our village and Billy was shouting ‘Support Rotherham Hospice’ the whole way round! It felt so good to be doing something so positive and so worthwhile together. It was so much fun and we all loved doing it! My Dad was fortunately still awake when we passed his house and he threw some money in Billy’s collecting tin, which made him so happy.

When we got home I posted the photos and a video I made on Social Media along with a donate button. Amazingly we raised £240, we are so grateful and blown away by everyone’s generosity and support, especially at this very difficult time.

We can not recommend doing a ‘Glow from Home’ enough as it certainly made us feel like we’d made a difference, which is so important.

Here’s hoping we can all get together again for next years event – but for now, get your glow on and go local!