Glo Salon  – Pulled out all the stops for this year’s SYC Christmas Party!

Every year the Lisa May Foundation organises a Christmas party for children who are young carers. The budgets for the extra things at this time of year are hard to come by so for the last three years we have not only donated funds to the Surrey Young Carers charity we have also taken on the responsibility of finding a venue and organising a Christmas party.  These carers are often so busy looking after those they love that there is little time for themselves.  Carers from as young as 4-18 take some responsibility for a sibling or family member at home who is living with a long-term illness or disability.

This year 15 fantastic children aged from 8-11 were invited by the Foundation to a super-sized grotto party on the first floor of the Glo Salon in Park Street, Camberley. Alan and Lorraine Farmery from Glo Salon kindly agreed to be the main sponsor for this year’s party and when we suggested a grotto theme they went all out to make it happen, including building the grotto from scratch! The party started after the salon closed and the V.I.P guests had an exclusive venue all to themselves.

Children were greeted by the Glo and LMF staff dressed as elves and welcomed with mocktails at the bar, which included Rudolphs’s Nose, Elves’ Christmas punch and Candy Cane surprise, all served in cocktail glasses with fresh grapes and strawberries. The evening began with photos with the children using Christmas themed props in front of the snow scene projected onto the wall.  Alex Kazam, the magician, then arrived and entertained them with tricks they could joined in with. There was lots of audience participation and judging by the laughter the show was a great success.

A festive feast of pizza and nibbles were all on offer and the table was decorated with crackers and balloons. Continuing the Christmas theme the children got the chance to decorate their own cupcakes with elf’ and Santa faces. While the children were busy Santa slid down the chimney and waited in the grotto by the fire to greet them and hand out a few early presents. Then as it was time to leave the children were invited  back into the grotto to find their very own stockings flashing on the wall!

They each left with a bag of presents, a stocking of goodies and a large bag of chocolates!

Our whole year is about raising money to help our local and global causes, but none of it would be possible without the support of local businesses like Glo, STIHL GB, Specsavers, La Di Da Cup Cakery, Zizzi’s and Chocoholics who all donated to make the evening such a night to remember for the children.

But it is not always about the money.  The effort and time that staff gave up to dress up and help was priceless. Lorraine and Alan giving up the venue and building the grotto with all the extra finishing touches was amazingly kind and thoughtful as were all the donations of presents by all the sponsors. A customer of Glo, Gavin Russell provided a projector and the snow scene backdrop which the children loved! Glo have gone the extra mile, now LMF has to find a way to top it next year!