This festive season we’ve caught up with Birmingham based charity Cerebral Palsy Midlands, who are also recent winners of our eBay sponsored Big Giveaway which took place in September, securing a £500 donation. We spoke to Sarah, the Deputy Manager of the charity, to learn more about their work and their festive event in 2025.
Tell us about the charity
Cerebral Palsy Midlands (CPM), which has been running since 1947, supports individuals with complex needs in Harborne, Birmingham to live life to the fullest and offers more than most traditional adult day services. Every day we run different activities at our accessible community centre with regular sessions including pottery groups, musical production, wheelchair dance and virtual gaming.
As well as running activities on site, we help people across the community with shopping, GP appointments, meals out and day trips. We also run weekends away for small groups to allow them to have a holiday. A lot of the people we support went to specialist colleges when they were younger and then after that education has finished often, they end up stuck at home, feeling isolated and wondering how to go out into the community and make friends – a day service like we offer at CPM has a massive impact on their lives.
How are CPM delivering Christmas magic this year?
On Wednesday, December 17 our team rallied together to swap normal activities for a Christmas meal. The inclusive meal allowed everyone that CPM supports to come together and celebrate Christmas. This is important because not all the people we support are able to have a traditional Christmas dinner and may live alone or in sheltered housing with appointed carer calls for 15 minutes here and there maybe a couple of times a day.
This way we make sure they can have a Christmas dinner with all of their friends together in a traditional way with crackers on the tables and decorations and make sure everyone is fed. We cater for everyone.
How easyfundraising has helped
In short, the money raised through easyfundraising has helped us offer the Christmas meal this year. To date we have raised more than £700 thanks to our supportive shoppers on easyfundraising.
In September we entered easyfundraising’s eBay Big Giveaway competition and won £500 which further helped us give those we support a Christmas to remember. It’s a big operation but it’s so worth it because there will be those that attended who on Christmas day itself probably won’t see anybody.
We’re so, so grateful to everyone that supports us when they shop online. It’s such a simple thing but makes such a huge difference to our work and our service users.
How you can get behind CPM
Charities like CPM are vital to help adults with cerebral palsy and other disabilities grow in confidence and independence. With your support CPM can continue to be there for those with complex needs, facing isolation in the community. If you’d like to raise free donations for them every time you shop online, sign up here.
Are you connected to a cause that could use some extra free funding? Register your cause.