By walking a mile on your own, with your friends and family, colleagues, or total strangers, you can help support Sands to offer support to anyone affected by the death of a baby, improve the care that parents receive after the death of a baby, and to fund research to help save babies' lives.
Take a look at the dedicated Walk a Mile in My Shoes pack, or read on for more ideas.
Walk in Memory
Whether you decide to walk alone, with friends and family, with work colleagues or even with your dog, organising and taking part in a Walk a Mile in My Shoes event, allows you to share and celebrate memories while raising awareness and vital funds for Sands.
The money you raise will help Sands to continue to meet the need for our bereavement support services, improve bereavement care throughout the UK; and fund and promote research that could help save babies’ lives.
Together we can make a difference.
Walk your own walk
Everyone is unique and has a different story to tell. The type of walk you choose will be unique too – it can be serious or fun, high profile or lower key, it’s all up to you.
During Sands Awareness Month this June, we want to see a wide variety of different Walk a Mile in My Shoes events taking place all over the country. To help you decide what type of event you want to arrange we've put some ideas together in our Walk a Mile in My Shoes pack.
Plan your walk
Once you have decided the type of Walk a Mile in My Shoes event you want to organise, you will need to get planning. Small, intimate walks on your own or with just close family or friends can be kept simple and you can ask people to make a donation in memory of your baby to take part.
Ideally you should find a route that:
- Is easily accessible - think about disabled access, pram access
- Has parking and toilet facilities
- Has a venue or a space for refreshments afterwards
Simple steps to help you fundraise
Step 1: Set up an online sponsorship page by clicking on start fundraising button. If you have already set up a Just Giving page make sure to link it with our Sands Awareness Month Campaign.
Step 2: Tell everyone about your Walk a Mile in My Shoes event! Online, in your local community, your local Newspaper.
Step 3: Ask your employer to match what you raise.
Step 4: Fundraise on the day - we can help with collection tins!
Have a look at our Walk a Mile in My Shoes support pack for extra help to get your fundraising off to a flying start!
Where does your money go?
Here are just some of the ways your fundraising will help support the work of Sands:
£15 Could provide a Family Support Pack for bereaved parents in need of information and advice. This could also provide a midwife with the leaflets and resources needed to provide support to bereaved parents.
£150 Could provide Sands memory boxes to hospitals in need to give to 7 bereaved parents. These memory boxes help parents to create memories and collect keepsakes in a very special way.
£1500 Could help fund the costs of a medical research project to identify babies most at risk of stillbirth and neonatal death and to develop new treatments and better care to reduce the loss of babies' lives.
Next Steps
Please register your Walk a Mile in My Shoes event by contacting us at e: teamsands@sands.org.uk, or t: 0203 897 6092. If you would like to make your event open to the public, let us know and we can help promote it.
Once you have registered your walk, we will send you a fundraising pack to help you raise money and awareness. We have a great selection of resources for your walk – from posters, to t-shirts, sponsorship forms, social media profile pictures and balloons.
We’ll also send you advice about setting up your own online donation page, as well as some top tips to help give your sponsorship an extra boost.
Once you’ve raised your money, it’s easy to pay in your friends and family’s generous donations using your ‘money return form’ from your fundraising pack to return your money to Sands. Full details of paying in your money are included in your fundraising pack.