Confession: ‘I forged sponsorship form'
Hi, Megan here. I quite often feel like this column is a very cathartic way of ridding me of my guilt.
So, time for confession No 8, we have become that family who forges our children’s sponsorship forms.
As a parent there’s always something to fundraise for. When I was a young netball player we had to do a lot of raffle-book selling and chocolate-block selling and my mum and dad made all of us kids hit the streets.
We lived on a farm so mum would take us into town, drop us off and we weren’t to come back until we had sold all of our fundraising wares.
It scarred me for life. So when the old sponsorship form came home in my 4-year-old’s kindy backpack, I almost lost the plot.
Putting on a brave face, I tried to explain how sponsorship works for his “Wheel-a-thon” event.
All he had to do was bike around the tennis court on his dinosaur-decorated balance bike for half an hour and people would pay him money that he then had to give to his kindy.
It was hard for him to get his head around that. He thought he could take the money and spend it on a brand new dinosaur.
So the form got stuck to the fridge and every day I looked at it and thought I had better ask some people to sponsor Raef, and every day I ignored that thought.
Then finally, on the morning of the big event, as if by some kind of miracle, there appeared four names on the form.
Aunties, uncles and grandparents had all donated $20 each to the cause. I know, I’m a terrible person, I forged their names and the amount they donated.
I even used different handwriting and different pens to make it seem legit. To granddad’s credit, when I texted him and told him he was sponsoring Raef $20 he coughed up the cash. Granddads are good like that. Busy shy mums however are not. Note to self, I’d better start saving for that trip to Nepal right now because if I can’t handle a 4-year-old’s “Wheel-a-thon” I certainly won’t be able to handle a teenager’s overseas trip!