‘My parents can rent out my room!’
says MAX WOOSEY
‘When Max told me he wanted to set up a JustGiving page to see if anyone would sponsor him for sleeping outside in a tent, I told him – gently, of course – that no-one would really be bothered,’ laughs Rachael Woosey. ‘How wrong could I have been?’
Because now, after over 18 months, her 12-year-old son has raised more than £640,000 for a local hospice – and is inspiring other children to do the same!
Max first began camping outside on 28 March 2020 when he was just 10 years old, after being given a tent by the family’s neighbour, Rick Abbott, in North Devon and told to ‘have an adventure’.
And that is certainly what Max has gone on to do!
Because, despite mum Rachael, 49, and dad Mark, 53, being initially cautious, they allowed Max to camp outside in their back garden. And despite their belief that he wouldn’t last the night, he hasn’t returned to his bedroom since!
After 10 days, he suggested setting up a JustGiving page to raise money for North Devon Hospice, who helped Rick, who sadly died of cancer. And when the hospice made a short video and a local newspaper picked up the story, the donations flooded in.
Hundreds, then thousands, then hundreds of thousands of pounds…
And he certainly deserved them. Because Max stayed out in all weather – sun, storms, sleet and snow.
‘I was really scared when I slept out during my first storm but I just thought about what my mum would say, that they were just noises, and I knew I wouldn’t die,’ says Max matter-of-factly.
Even on the nights when temperatures dipped to −4° or when Max would be in tears because it had rained so hard everything was wet through, he still remained in his tent. Or, at least, one of them. He has gone through an incredible 10 tents during his ‘adventure’.
‘At the beginning, I never thought I’d last this long,’ Max says. ‘But I’ve loved it. It’s 100 per cent worth it, all of the hard moments. My parents can rent out my room – I won’t be sleeping in it any time soon!’
To mark a year in the tent, he held ‘Max’s Big Camp Out’ to encourage other children to camp out – whether that be in their back gardens or bedrooms – to raise money for a charity of their choice. Thousands of children from all across the world joined in.
North Devon Hospice is of course delighted by Max’s support. After six months, the manager called up to say that he had raised enough to pay for a nurse’s wage for a year – and later, to tell him that they were the only hospice not to have any cuts, because of the money that Max brought in.
But no-one is prouder than Rachael and Mark.
‘The only night I’ve slept soundly was on Boxing Day night when Storm Bella was savaging our area – and that was because Mark was outside with him,’ says Rachael.
‘I’ve stayed out with him a few nights, including his first anniversary. When I saw the donations hit £500,000, I felt like my heart would burst. He is my hero – and I’m delighted he’s best’s hero too!’
Like many business owners, Vicky and Chris Saynor were forced to shut the doors to their self-catering retreat throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
But then a phone call changed everything.
‘It was New Year’s Eve when one of our previous guests called,’ says Vicky, 45. ‘She said she was in danger and her husband, who was violent to her when he was drunk, had started drinking. I couldn’t say no.’
When their unexpected guest arrived, she was a shell of her usual self.
‘I’d been in an abusive relationship previously,’ says Vicky. ‘I know it’s just not that easy to leave. I also knew that domestic violence had shot up during lockdown.’
It became very clear what Vicky and Chris had to do.
Working with the local authority, social workers and the police, the couple opened up their rooms to those needing respite from domestic violence.
‘It was difficult as we were not a refuge,’ explains Vicky. ‘ We had to be very clear that we were offering victims a maximum four-day stay in order to rest, have some time to think and seek help.’
As soon as the couple opened their doors in January 2021, they were continuously full for the next four months. Their guests ranged from single mums with babies, a mother with a teenage son escaping her violent adult daughter, to a man beaten black and blue by his wife, who was too ashamed to talk to them.
Vicky and Chris did everything they could to help guests during their stay.
The couple, along with their four children aged nine, 11, 13 and 16, created bespoke welcome packs, including toys and games for the children.
And Vicky’s offspring played football or bounced on the trampoline with youngsters, leaving parents free to rest or make important phone calls to solicitors or counselling services.
‘ We put out requests on our social media and were inundated with gifts for our welcome packs,’ says Vicky. ‘ We hated turning guests away so we asked for PayPal donations to put people up in local hotels.
‘Local restaurants delivered food and we even had lawyers offering free advice.’
Over four months, Vicky and Chris helped 23 families and 12 individuals from all walks of life.
‘Surprisingly, many of the people who came to us lived a very middle-class life,’ says Vicky. ‘From the outside, you wouldn’t think anything was going on. One woman seemed to have the perfect life, with horses and a brand-new car but, in reality, she was scared, isolated from her friends and family, and had no idea how to access the help she needed.’
Vicky also remembers a hairdresser who came to stay after her partner had broken her hand, but hadn’t allowed her to go to hospital to get it seen to.
‘She’d probably never be able to work again,’ says Vicky. ‘ We looked after her children while the woman’s friend drove her to get seen by doctors.’
While Chris and Vicky have reverted their business back to luxury stays, they’re still looking for ways to give back.
‘I had breast cancer two years ago and since then we regularly donate stays to people affected by cancer, as well as to NHS workers,’ says Vicky.
‘I’m incredibly humbled to receive this award. It felt absolutely the right thing to do, and we’d do it again in a heartbeat!’
Twenty-five years ago Meir Plancey, then 24, was at university in Israel, living with a family whose five-yearold son was suffering with a brain tumour.
‘Chemo was tough for a five-year-old,’ Meir recalls, ‘but I realised when he came home from the hospital, no matter how sick he felt, if I could make him laugh, distract him, even for a minute, things didn’t feel so bad – not just for him, but for the whole family.’
Moved by his experience, Meir returned to the UK and, realising there was nothing like that sort of help being offered to Jewish families in London, the idea of founding ‘Camp Simcha’ – Simcha is the Hebrew word for happiness – began to form.
‘I kept thinking ,“How can we bottle that?”’ he recalls. ‘How can we distract children for a minute, an hour or half a day during a really tough time?’
Soon after, he met 18-yearold Rachely via friends and, hearing his dream, she agreed to help turn it into a reality and form a registered charity.
This inspirational couple married and began visiting North London hospitals, asking if staff would put them in contact with Jewish families who had children suffering from cancer. At first, the pair were contacted by just eight families.
‘ We were there for them 24 hours a day from our kitchen table,’ Rachely recalls. ‘I made meals when the family needed them – cooking can be the last thing you want to do in your darkest times – we provided lifts to the hospitals and Meir organised activities, everything from colouring books to clowns to go to the hospitals and the homes – anything to distract the children and make them smile. We also worked closely with their parents and siblings, because it is often the siblings who struggle.
‘The families, rightly, spend a lot of time with the unwell child and the siblings can feel left out. Not only do siblings have the shock of their brother or sister’s diagnosis and all the fear that comes with it but, if the unwell child is hospitalised, they are separated from that brother or sister and one or even both parents. Children, especially young ones, often don’t understand why they are being made to stay with relatives.’
At first, funds were raised via the local synagogue in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, with the help of Rabbi Alan Plancey, Meir’s father.
As the charity grew – it is now UK-wide and helps some 1,400 family members annually and a further 12,000 children via hospital outreach – the money needed to help these families grew.
Rachely – now Head of the Family Liaison Team – helped Meir expand the fundraising to everything from fun runs to quiz nights and dinners. By this point, she was a mum of four children of her own and Meir had taken a job in finance to support his growing brood.
Today, Camp Simcha provides help not only for
children with cancer, but also for those with more than 50 different chronic, serious, lifechanging and life-threatening illnesses, and recently expanded to support families of children with a serious mental health condition.
Among their practical and therapeutic support services, they offer hospital transport for families that need it, respite, counselling, as well as a Big Brother and Big Sister volunteer programme.
‘I work with the families and appoint one of 13 fullytrained liaison officers to work with them for as long as they need us,’ explains Rachely. ‘ We can also put fully trained older children in touch with a younger child.
They become friends and it is someone for them to talk to. My own son, Michael, 22, is currently a fully trained “Big Brother” to a 14-year-old boy. They are going to the theatre together next week. It is someone they can talk to about their own feelings.’
Camp Simcha also offers family counselling and therapeutic arts sessions,
which have been a constant during Covid, where anxiety has been high.
‘ We are presently running around 50 weekly virtual sessions reaching children we support in all parts of the country. Mums tell me how much the children love these sessions and look forward to them,’ Rachely explains. In addition, the charity runs support groups and family retreats twice a year where parents can meet. ‘It is often only other parents facing the unimaginable who can truly understand how they feel,’ Rachely explains. They also send a steady stream of fun activities, from creative toys, games and crafts to books and seed and herb garden kits for inside and out. And at Christmas they collect and donate toys to children on hospital wards. ‘It’s all children, not just Jewish children we give toys to,’ she continues, and the charity runs a variety of hospital outreach projects all year round, and also now works closely with Noah’s Ark, a children’s hospice in North London.
Where does she find the time to be a mum of now six children herself, as well as a lifeline to countless mothers with children with serious illnesses?
She smiles at the question. ‘I couldn’t do it without the help and support of my own mother, who lives just two doors away,’ she admits. ‘She often helps me with my kids – and that was especially the case when they were little. But making a difference to seriously ill children is a privilege. Many of the parents we support say being part of Camp Simcha is like having an extended family.
‘If we lose any of the children we support, I will go to the funeral and remember that child every year. How could you not?’
A special woman – and a special charity.
As for the little boy who set the whole idea in motion? He is a grown man, fully recovered. As Rachely says: ‘Looking back at the past 25 years I have had the privilege of being in these families’ lives at their most vulnerable and difficult times – a true honour.’
‘Making a difference is a privilege’