a GROUP of colleagues are taking a giant leap into the unknown to raise funds for vulnerable children.
Anna Percival, Richard Moreton, Max Jones and Jimmy Hext-Williams are bravely jumping out of a plane from 15,000 feet in aid of Tavistock charity the Mary Budding Trust which supports local families with practical child support.
All four daredevils, also friends, are child care workers at the Beeches home in Okehampton, part of Phoenix Care and Education.
They look after children who need dedicated therapies and education support.
Anna admitted they are nervous: ‘We came up with the idea of a skydive when a colleague told us how she’d done a skydive and all the problems. But we weren’t deterred and all decided we’d like to do it for charity and top of the list was the Mary Budding Trust. The trust is a local charity from Tavistock and does really important work. It’s close to our heart because of the work we do and because it’s also what we do is more than a job.
‘The trust looks after families who need urgent support and longer term therapies. We couldn’t think of any better cause. We really wanted to help a local charity instead of a national charity. We’re then helping our own neighbours and families.
‘We never know if we’d need their help as well or our relatives might — you never know what life might throw up.’
Anna has an extra reason to support the charity, her dad is the cousin of one of the charity’s founders, Ann McDonald, (Mrs Mac) MBE, who died in 2015 of cancer. She died shortly after receiving her MBE, but was too ill to be presented with it.
Anna said: ‘Mrs Mac devoted her life to looking after children in extra need through the trust. So I’d like to continue her good work by supporting the charity she helped start, though Mary Budding was the actual founder.
‘Mrs Mac was also my dad’s cousin, so I feel close to the trust in many ways.’
Anna added: ‘We support individual needs of children who can get lost through the health and care system. We work with the behavioural side of the children and our view is that there’s no such thing as a naughty child - they can be helped with support and the right therapies.’
Sarah Pendle, Mary Budding Trust chair, said: ‘The trust is really delighted to have four such brave people to jump from an aeroplane all in aid of us. They are brilliant people for doing this.’
The trust supports children with additional needs aged 11 and under in West Devon. It has provided mobility equipment, travel costs, speech therapy and psychotherapy, and sensory equipment. To support Anna in her skydive go to this link:
More on The Mary Budding Trust at https://www.marybuddingtrust.org.uk
Chair Sarah Pendle is on [email protected] and 07929911892