Fundraiser will celebrate 10 years virtually
An annual fundraiser by an inspiring East Kilbride teenager is back on the cards after fears that coronavirus would see it cancelled.
However, the ever popular Tea Jenny event – now in its tenth year – won’t be in its usual format –it’s going virtual.
Last year the glittering event in a Glasgow hotel raised £21,000.
It is the brainchild of teen Jenny Cook, 17, from Stewartfield who has raised nearly half a million pounds for good causes.
Jenny has been fundraising since she was just five-years-old when she had to have large bowel removed.
She suffers from a type of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), ulcerative colitis – which is a chronic and debilitating disease.
But the determined Williamwood High pupil has never let this stand in her way.
She has raised a total of £420,000 for the Catherine McEwan Foundation, which supports patients living with Crohn’s and Colitis and the Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity. She continues to receive treatment at the hospital.
Jenny, who recently secured five straight As in her Highers, set herself a whopping target of reaching the half-a-million pounds mark this year, but feared that COVID would thwart her efforts.
But she had decided to hold the event on line on Sunday, October 4 from 7-9pm with more information on how to get involved to come.
Jenny said:“This year should have been the big tenth Ladies Lunch sadly due to COVID it can’t go ahead as normal.
“But it hasn’t stopped children being diagnosed with Inflammatory Bowel Disease and needing our support.
“This year I have two amazing projects that desperately need funds.
“With everyone’s help I know we can support them and make a difference!
“So we are now having a live virtual Tea Jenny that you can tune in and watch from the comfort of your own home!”
Jenny’s epic fundraising efforts has seen her win a number of accolades and she has also brushed shoulders with royalty meeting Prince Willaim and Kate at Kensington Palace when she was a finalist in the Radio 1 Teen awards for her fundraising work for the then Yorkhill.
At just 13 she was crowned Young Scot and is also a Young Ambassador for the Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity.
And last year the budding public speaker addressed her biggest crowd to date when she told her incredible story to 4000 delegates at the opening ceremony of the European Society for Paediatric Gastroenterologist, Hepatology and Nutrition in Glasgow’s Clyde Auditorium.