Scottish Catholic Observer

Thanks to you, this year’s Wee Box Lenten appeal has been a huge success. The fantastic £3.4million raised to help some of the world’s poorest people far exceeded everyone’s expectations at SCIAF. We know from long experience that our supporters are incredibly generous, but we’re truly humbled by your

overwhelming response.

Winning the UK Government Aid Match funding scheme meant that every pound you donated up to May 17 was doubled. There’s no doubt this encouraged many more people to give, and to give much more. This year, even before donations were doubled by the government, the appeal raised a record-breaking £1.8million, nearly £900,000 more than our previous highest total of £986,000 in 2011.

We hope our 50th anniversary has brought people closer to SCIAF. Many of you have attended special Masses across the country, saw the SCIAF Story exhibition of our history, or met Alistair Dutton our director on his 1000-mile cycle pilgrimage to say ‘thank you’ to schools and parishes around Scotland. The huge level of goodwill and love that so many supporters have shown over the course of this year has really touched our staff and volunteers. We really do feel like we are part of a very big, loving family.

Speaking after we announced the grand total of our Wee Box appeal with Baroness Verma from the UK Government’s Department for International Development, Alistair said: “We’ve been bowled over by the incredible response to our Lenten appeal from schools, parishes and individuals this year. We are really grateful to everyone who was so generous—thank you all! Your generosity, kindness and prayers will change the lives of many of our poorest brothers and sisters around the world.”

This year’s appeal highlighted our work with women farmers in Malawi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Your donations will help thousands of women to grow more food, earn money to support their children and play an active part in their communities. It will also help many other poor people around the world to get the help they need to work their way out of poverty and change their lives for the better, for good.

We’re also really grateful to The Scottish Catholic Observer for its tremendous support and for taking the time, together with the Daily Record, Radio Clyde and its sister stations, to see our work with women in Africa. Sharing the difficult life stories of the people we work with in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo no doubt inspired many people to get involved.

We were incredibly fortunate to have our Bishop-President Joseph Toal attend the media launch alongside some of our celebrity supporters—Susan Boyle, Nicholas McDonald and Kaye Adams. They all spoke very highly of SCIAF and their own personal connection to our work. Their presence no doubt encouraged the television news, radio and many of Scotland’s newspapers, to highlight the Wee Box appeal and encourage people to back it.

Behind the spotlight of the media and the grand total there’s always a huge amount of work put in by our volunteers, supporters and staff. Our fundraising and outreach staff work on each Lent appeal for a good part of the year and many other staff are involved in its success—it’s a huge team effort.

Each year we travel to parishes all over Scotland to share inspirational stories from overseas with the people who make our work possible. There’s a particular ‘push’ during Lent and the job of organising Lenten thank you talks at churches across the country falls to our tireless parish officer, Rachel Lamb.

This year, with the help of over 40 volunteers, Rachel arranged for speakers to visit 235 Masses in 122 parishes across every diocese in Scotland. These talks are a chance for us to show you how your incredible generosity is making a difference.

“Parishes are the beating heart of SCIAF, without them, the wonderful work we’re doing wouldn’t be possible,” Rachel said. “I’ve been lucky enough to see some of that work first-hand so it’s a real privilege to be able to share it with people here in Scotland. The welcome we got as we travelled around the country telling Mary Jackson’s story has been fantastic.

“I’m always amazed by the generosity shown by parishes during Lent but this year it’s been truly incredible. I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who helped to hand out Wee Boxes, held fundraising events, counted coins, gave a thank you talk or filled in an Aid Match Consent Form—you’re all wonderful!”

Schools also rise to the challenge every Lent for the Wee Box appeal. This year they did better than ever. Our schools officer, Mark Booker, arranged a whopping 127 visits and was inspired by the enthusiasm and creativity young people bring to the appeal. In this special year our schools worked harder than ever, raising over 120 per cent more than they did in 2014. Schools from across all dioceses joined in the fundraising by taking part in the traditional SCIAF fast, holding SCIAF fun days, starting up business enterprises, walking miles and miles, holding bake sales, running sporting events, washing cars, soaking teachers, collecting pennies in the Wee Box and much more.

“Even though I’ve visited many schools and collected lots of cheques over my three years with SCIAF, I’m still amazed and humbled by the generosity of young people,” Mark said. “Schools, teachers and pupils consistently show their love for their global neighbours by supporting SCIAF financially but also just as important, if not more, through prayer and education. This year has been no different and with the extra incentive of the Aid Match, schools have worked even harder to make their fundraising go further. I’m very proud of all the schools for their help.”

Every donation we get is gratefully received, and logged. The huge response this year—literally ‘twice as big’ as previous years, meant that staff and volunteers in our supporter services department were stretched to the limit to make sure everyone’s donations were correctly recorded and thank you letters sent out. Our supporter services team also helped to process over 2450 campaign postcards you sent in asking First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to make action on climate change a priority for her government.

Anne Karlin is our supporter services manager. Her team processed over 11,500 donations and couldn’t have done it without our committed and inspiring team of office volunteers who are very much a part of the SCIAF family.

“In my 11 years here at SCIAF, this Lent has been the best yet,” she said. “I’m immensely grateful both to all our loyal and extremely generous long-term supporters who’ve donated again but also to the thousands of new supporters we welcomed this Lent.

“My small but incredibly hard-working team strived to provide the very highest levels of service even when donations exceeded 1600 in a single day. We value each and every donation as a contribution from one person to another in the communities we work with overseas. Our team motivation was to make a real and lasting difference to the lives of African women farmers through the Lenten appeal. With the fantastic opportunity that Aid Match presented us with—we really gave it all we’d got!”

From behind the scenes to those who went in front of the TV media, this has been a very special experience for the SCIAF family. We feel incredibly grateful to have such fantastic

supporters. The success of this year was probably best summed up by one of our amazing long-time supporters, Susan Boyle, when she said recently: “This is an amazing result—beyond our wildest dreams! When I helped to launch the appeal in February I thought it would do really well but I’d no idea it would be this successful. It’s really fantastic that people have taken SCIAF’s Wee Box appeal to their hearts and given so generously. Many more people who are hungry and poor will now get the help they need to improve their lives and have a better future.”

— www.sciaf.org.uk