Fletcher’s Fund

At Wishy, we want to understand more about what charities can offer and how we and the public can support them. We sat down with Leanne at Fletcher’s Fund to find out more about how they can offer positive support to Children.

Why was Fletchers Fund created?

Fletcher Fisher was the much loved first child of Lee and Leanne Fisher. Born April 2015 in Carlisle, he was in every way a typical toddler. Fun, energetic, loving, and beautiful. He met all his milestones, and was thriving – a bouncing, happy baby. Until he got sick aged 9 months old. He spent a lot of time in Leeds hospital as he needed specific treatment for his rare Cancer diagnosis. Being away from home, the time in hospital was isolating and there were few opportunities for Fletcher to mix with other children on the ward. The family valued time with the play therapists. 14 months later when Fletcher passed away, Leanne and her husband decided to take their experience and make a legacy for Fletcher.

What is Fletcher’s Fund?

Fletchers Fund raise money to create ranges of fun items to be distributed to children who are in hospital fighting cancer; particularly those in isolation. We wanted to create something for the kids so that when they are in that small room, they have something to entertain them and something to do. We established that whatever we provide needs to be portable, storable, and easy to give to children and so we developed the bags. The idea has developed and expanded and everything we do is in collaboration with the expert play teams that already exist in the hospitals.
What are the bags for?

Fletcher’s Fund have different types of bags.

Firstly, there are the bags for children aged 0-12 which is then further split into age ranges and are filled with 20-23 items. All items are appropriate to age groups and childhood development abilities.
Next, we have the bags for children aged between 12-18. These are then further split into groups for boys and girls. The bags have activities but also self-care items in them to let the teenagers know that they are young people with an identity not just cancer patients. We feel that they deserve to be recognised as adults of the future and by providing the supplies, children can take ownership of their self-care.
Finally, we have a new bag being piloted which has specialist sensory equipment. It includes items that are bright and colourful and have varied textures and sounds.

How does Fletchers Fund help?

Fletcher’s Fund raises awareness of the struggles faced by patients and their families who spend a lot of time in hospital. We use the generous donations to not only provide a bit of fun to children in hospital through the bags, but to also provide memory-making-grants.

A memory-making-grant is available to children aged from birth to 18 who have cancer or a related condition; for example, if you are looked after by an Oncologist or Haematologist with your primary care being administered in the UK and are receiving treatment or are up to 6 months post treatment, a grant can be provided to you.

Pre-pandemic the grants were used for days out, holidays, photoshoots, day trips, etc. During the pandemic, the grants have been used for play equipment at home or even used to support personal emergencies.
What are you proud of?

“We are just proud that from our own experience, we have been able to make a positive impact on people’s lives and Fletcher’s legacy lives on.”

It can be really rewarding to make a difference to people’s lives. We do not always find out exactly what the grants are spent on, but we had a particular application for a boy in North-East England which stated the child wanted to go to a Michelin star restaurant. We asked the family if they minded us getting in touch with the restaurant to try and make the experience extra-special. With their permission we went on and contacted the restaurant and told them the story behind the customer and to request some special treatment to make it a day to remember. The restaurant agreed and upon his visit, the boy got to meet the head chef and was shown around the whole restaurant including a behind the scenes look at the kitchen. He enjoyed shouting service to the servers from the pass and at the end of his meal, he was sent away with a goody bag from the restaurant.

On another occasion, we had an application for a grant to enable a young girl to go to the XFactor Tour. Through our contacts we managed to find one of the families of a band member from XFactor that would be on the tour and this family gave the girl the tickets so that the grant could be used for a nice hotel stay and make a nice getaway for the family.

We have a noticeboard in our office full of thank you cards and feedback from the families in the office and everyday walking in and seeing this makes us immensely proud of the work that we do and that we have been able to create something from nothing which makes a real difference to so many.

What does the future look like for Fletchers Fund?

At Fletcher’s Fund we are ambitious. There are around 80 paediatric cancer wards and right now we only work with 7. As the charity grows, we aim to work with all of them. We want to get more bags out there and give more grants. We hope to set up more support networks to link families together for both emotional support and mental health support.

How can people help?

We have lots of ideas, but we really need help with the funding.
It currently cost £10 for a kid’s bag, £20 for a teen bag and a memory-making-grant is £100.
Every donation made means we can help more children and their families during a difficult time in their lives.