By Lisa Ramsden
Businesses from Kilkeel to Clough, and a few from further across the county, have been praised by a local woman for supporting her quest to provide new books to the children and young people who stay at Daisy Lodge, the Cancer Fund for Children’s local respite centre.
Annalong’s Laura Johnston was thrilled to drop off £1,500 worth of books to the short-break facility near Bryansford earlier this month.
The books will be used in the centre, as well as being given as gifts and prizes to some of the children and families staying at Daisy Lodge, which is operated by the Cancer Fund for Children charity.
Laura said she is indebted to every business who supported her initiative and has thanked them for their kindness.
“At the beginning of the summer I launched this project with the goal of donating new books to Daisy Lodge. The plan was to get them some books over the summer that they could use to top up their bookshelves and give as gifts to the children and their families staying at the centre. We managed to get £1,500 of books delivered to the centre, which was amazing,” she explained.
Laura admitted that when she first started the project, she wasn’t entirely sure how much support it would receive, so to see the final collection of books all piled up together was, as she puts it, “amazing”.
The local woman, who operates Book Buddies, continued: “The businesses who got behind it were incredibly generous. Every contribution, whether big or small, added up to something really special.”
She added that she is “so grateful to every business that trusted the idea and became a Book Buddy!”
Laura has also thanked Daisy Lodge for giving her the chance to use her business to benefit them.
“It’s really in line with where I want Book Buddies to grow to in the near future,” she said.
Laura said that providing free books for children is something very important to her.
Two years ago, with the support of just five businesses as a pilot project, she managed to raise £1,000 to purchase books for a worthy cause.
Now, to have been able to increase the donation sum further, is something Laura is quite rightly very proud of.
And, with some big plans for the near future, including a similar appeal which will see books purchased for Compassion Belfast and its work with children across the city, Laura is determined to help as many children and young people as she can through her love of reading and story time.
She said her ultimate goal is to “get books into the hands of children who need them”.
Laura added: “I want to use my platform to do good across the local community and beyond.”
