Stripey Stork and Reigate Hill Golf Club

Reigate Hill Golf Club – a partnership which set a course record score!

At the start of 2020, we were delighted to be chosen as Reigate Hill Golf Club’s Charity of the Year by the incoming Captains, Kate and Roger.

They invited us along to the Captain’s dinner to tell the members all about Stripey Stork and we enjoyed a fantastic evening.  Reigate Hill Golf Club is set in the beautiful grounds of the Surrey Hills and has a proud history of supporting charities.  We were enthusiastically welcomed by their members, there was a great sense of camaraderie and we heard about their legendary golf events where players raise money for charity by taking part in raffles, auctions and receive fines for rule-breaking!

We had big plans for the partnership, but none of us could have foreseen what would happen next.  Shortly afterwards, the country went into lockdown.

Supporting us through lockdown

When the restrictions came into place, Stripey Stork saw a huge increase in referrals almost overnight.  Many of the families we support live month-to-month and don’t have a financial buffer.  Lots of people who had previously been coping suddenly found that they had their hours cut, were placed on furlough or lost their jobs completely.  They didn’t have the means to buy resources for home-schooling and there were shortages of essentials like nappies and toiletries.

Following government guidelines, we closed our warehouse to volunteers while the core team continued to work away behind our closed shutters, responding to the increased demand.  Unable to accept the pre-loved donations that we usually reply on, we set up a Covid-19 appeal page to enable us to purchase new items.  This was shared with our supporters and our new friends at Reigate Hill enthusiastically supported it, and sent us some lovely messages thanking us for the work we were doing to support the community through this difficult time.

Volunteering

Ladies Captain Kate had previously volunteered at our warehouse, helping out when we moved in.  A fantastic ambassador for us, she encouraged her members to get involved too.

When Jacqui was furloughed from her role in the airline industry, she got in touch to find out how she could help us and ever since that initial contact, Jacqui has been an absolute star – helping out with our campaigns, running errands and when the golf club held fundraising events she made sure she was there with a Stripey Stork T-Shirt, brandishing raffle tickets and a collecting tin!

Another member, Barbara kept herself busy during lockdown by knitting some beautiful baby blankets for us.

Stripes4Stripey 2020

As the world started to open up again, events were able to go ahead in a socially distanced way and Kate and Roger organised a weekend golf event in June in support of Stripes4Stripey.   The weather was terrible, but golfers are a hardy bunch – they turned out in their stripes anyway and enjoyed a fantastic day.

Santa Stork 2020

When we launched our Christmas campaign, Santa Stork, we were able to secure some match-funding meaning that every donation was doubled.  We told Kate and Roger about this great opportunity and once again they shared it with their members, who enthusiastically supported the campaign.

With their help, Santa Stork 2020 was able to distribute 5,168 Christmas gifts to local families after an extremely difficult year.

Captain’s Charity Day and Events

In September the club traditionally holds a Captain’s charity day and the auction is a big draw.  Not ones to be deterred by restrictions, Roger and Kate came up with a virtual auction with some incredible prizes which was a huge success.

As well as supporting our campaigns, we were so impressed with the many creative and fun ideas that Kate and Roger came up with to raise money for us – including “buy a yard” (offering golfers the opportunity to pay to get themselves closer to the hole), a sock and ball sweep (with stripey socks, of course) as well as numerous raffles and golfing competitions.

Networking

In March 2021, we were contacted by the Ladies’ Captain at Reigate Heath Golf Club who wanted to support us as her charity for the year.  We introduced her to Kate and these two lovely ladies were able to share their insights and fundraising ideas, and of course they managed a game of golf or two along the way!

Extending the partnership

We were thrilled to hear that due to the disruptions from Covid, Kate and Roger had chosen to extend our partnership for a further year.

Run Reigate 2021

In September a group of took part in Run Reigate.  Kate led the way with her characteristic drive, winning the accolade of fastest lady in her category!

Santa Stork 2021

In November 2021 we undertook our biggest Santa Stork yet and we were thrilled that the ladies came to help at Santa Stork HQ, becoming Elves for the day and meeting the Mayor.

Bringing their A Game!

In March 2022, 2 years after the partnership started, Kate and Roger invited our partnerships Manager along to the Captain’s dinner once more and presented her with a cheque for £17,170.63!

Partnerships like this one are so valuable to us – as well as raising much-needed funds to support our valuable work, they help to raise awareness of what we do.  We are grateful to the members of Reigate Hill Golf Club for their enthusiastic support throughout the two years and we’d like to say a special TeamStork Thank you to Kate and Roger for all their hard work.  They certainly brought their A Game!