Sarah Lawrence from Trafalgar Tickets talks to Ensemble about a charity fundraiser which is very close to her heart.

Some of you may know me, some of you may not. I’m Sarah, one of the Contact Centre team leaders. In November 2024, my son Eli was sadly stillborn at 36 weeks pregnant (you may have read about us previously in Ensemble last year). This was completely unexpected and out of nowhere in an otherwise healthy pregnancy. 

What many people don’t realise is that within most hospitals, they have maternity bereavement suites. These are specifically for people that have lost their baby, to allow them time to spend with their child before inevitably having to say goodbye. These rooms allow for memory keepsakes to be made, photos to be taken and time to say goodbye. 

These rooms however are mostly publicly funded.

This year, for what should have been Eli’s 2nd birthday, we are holding a charity fundraiser in his memory to raise funds for the Southend Hospital Butterfly Suite. As we are unable to throw him a birthday party every year, we thought an annual event would be a nice way to honour his memory and allow him to continue making a difference here on earth, even though he sadly doesn’t get to be here himself. 

Part of this fundraiser includes an amazing raffle with over 120 prizes to be won which takes place on the 13 November. We would be incredibly grateful to anyone that would like to donate towards our fundraiser. 

Entries to the raffle can be made by making a donation to the JustGiving page. Every £1 donated can be 1 entry into the raffle. Any UK resident over the age of 18 can enter so do feel free to share the fundraiser with your friends and family too. There’s so many prizes – you could win your whole Christmas list!

Once a donation has been made, please email me at [email protected] with your phone number and address in case you win a prize.

All postage/delivery will be sorted and paid for by ourselves so don’t worry if you are not local to Southend – all prizes will make their way to the winners free of charge. 

You can of course also donate without joining the raffle if you don’t want to. Just let me know if you don’t want to be added into the raffle ticket draw.

Thank you to everyone that’s taken the time to read this article and an extra big thank you to anyone that does donate and support the cause. 

At such a tragic moment in our lives, the butterfly suite and the team were there to help us through the hardest moments and without public funding they wouldn’t be able to continue that great work for others. 

Here’s a look at what you could win!