Bank Holiday BBQ a sizzling success

Danny, Craig and Natasha

Bank Holiday sunshine provided a perfect day for a Happy House fundraising barbecue staged by Natasha Weman and her friends Craig Osborne and Danny MacFoster

The event held at London Colney Cricket Club, near Boreham Wood, was a huge success raising more than £1880 .

Natasha, who spent a month volunteering at Happy House last year,writes:

After visiting Kenya last summer with my Dad Russell, I definitely got the Happy House bug and couldn't help talking about it and spreading the love. My sister, Kara,

married this year and I met a lot of her friends at her wedding. They were all lovely, but two guys in particular, Craig and Danny, took such an interest in the Happy House and what it does they wanted to do something to help as well, in the form of a fundraiser.

 Plans got underway straight away and we decided on a summer BBQ.
 Craig works for a meat supplier (Nigel Fredericks catering butchers) and they kindly offered to donate all the meat, which gave me instant confidence of a successful day.

 We managed to get some amazing raffle prizes! So much chocolate, which I knew would be popular, booze, smelly sets, and my friend Janine, who works at Mars chocolate, managed to get us a signed England shirt and a couple of Wayne Rooney autographs.
It's so amazing how generous people are.

We decided to do the event on  August Bank Holiday Monday. The weather had been so unpredictable and we were panicking a bit when Sunday was a wash out.

 But the weather was definitely on our side and on Monday the sun was shining. I had managed to borrow lots of giant games -Connect 4, Jenga, dominoes plus more from my clients at Event Perfect. They were so much fun.

 Craig got the BBQ up and running and the food was amazing. It kept him very busy all afternoon, such was the demand!

We had loads of lovely freshly baked cakes too, made by our lovely friends to sell, a guess the jelly babies jar, an amazing raffle and a silent auction.

 Lots of other lovely things to sell including some beautiful handmade bracelets made in Watamu and Happy House bags

.It all went down a treat. It was just such a lovely relaxed day with some amazing music from my beautiful sister Kara, her friends Thom, Patch and Emily and another amazing musician, Kev Moth.

We are so lucky to know such talented people, all willing to give up their time. 
We are so happy with how the day went and will definitely be planning more events to raise money for the wonderful Happy House. We managed to raise an amazing total of £1880, plus gift aid,

I cannot believe people are so generous and  I know how the money raised will help  the Happy House to change kids lives in Kenya.

It's a pleasure to be able to stand up and  tell people honestly and with certainty that their money is going straight to the children. 100% of it!

 A special thanks to London Colney Cricket Club for letting us host the event at their ground, it was a perfect venue and free of charge.

I love telling people about my time in Kenya at the Happy House and getting them more friends and hopefully more visitors one day.

Huge thanks from everyone at Happy House to Craig, Danny and Natasha for arranging the barbecuse and for raising such a huge amount. Thank too to all those who supported it in any way. 

Every penny will be towards funding students, from abject poverty,  on our free place scholarship scheme in our school.
You are fantastic friends who are taking our Happy House work to a wider audience.
Thank you again.