Give Emma a Big Break

Claire at Being a Mummy has asked me to write a post to flag up a great campaign called the Big Break. You can read Claire’s Big Break post here.

Direct Debit would like you to nominate people who you think deserve a Big Break and they could win £1000. They are giving away one prize of £1000 each month until October.

The judges will be looking for nominations to reflect some of the following attributes:

• willingness to help others / always putting the needs of others first
• striving to overcome unusual adversity
• needing support in order to pursue a career or other significant personal endeavour
• consistently working for the greater good of the community
• working tirelessly for a charitable, not-for-profit or other worthy cause.

Every nomination received will count towards a donation to Marie Curie Cancer Care . Marie Curie Cancer Care provides high quality nursing, totally free, to give people with terminal cancer and other illnesses the choice of dying at home, supported by their families.

Well, I have quite a few people who I’m nominating. There’s Lloyd, who does lots of voluntary work for the school and has recently lost his partner very suddenly, leaving him to look after their two daughters. There’s Meg, who runs the local breastfeeding support group, which is an invaluable resource and who is constantly raising funds to keep it going after much of its funding was lost. There’s Sasha, who somehow manages to be a full-time mum to four children (not to mention a husband and a dog), work nights in a care home, work part-time for us, work on the playgroup community in various capacities, organise events in the local community and still, somehow manages to be available to friends and family when they need a lift, a coffee, a shoulder to cry on… There’s Eva who works very hard and far beyond her job remit for the local Children’s Centre, an emotionally stressful position, but is always on hand to help friends and family and others, even when she’s exhausted herself.

I will be nominating all of those people, too (because there’s no limit to how many people you nominate), and they could all use a break, a pat on the back and a £1000. But I really wanted to nominate someone who needed a break. A complete break.

And for that I couldn’t think of anyone better than Emma. Emma is the de facto parent to her grandson, as her daughter is unable to care for him. As well as looking after her grandson full-time, she also has two adult children still at home (and often a fair few of their friends!). She does the bulk of the cooking, the housework, the shopping, the childcare. A few years ago, an accident left her with severe pain in her leg and back. She used to work as a cleaner (in fact, she used to clean our house – far from the easiest place to clean!), but she can’t do that any more. Despite being incredibly busy running (or hobbling) around after her family, she still finds the time to help out her wider family – her sister, her nieces, and her grand-nieces. She’s the only driver in the family, so is constantly called upon to ferry people round to inaccessible places or help with moving house, or picking up bulky goods. When my mum was ill a few years ago, despite being back and forth looking after her own daughter, she would still drive us to see her a few times a week. She drove me to the hospital many times when I was pregnant with the girls, and brought RoRo home from hospital. She’ll come round and look after Wesley if we all have to be away for the day. She picks up my mum’s cat food and other bulky shopping. When RoRo needed to go to A&E, Emma jumped in her car and came to get us, waiting at the hospital and then taking us to Tesco to get the medicine, before driving us home – a couple of hours after I first phoned her.

When I asked her if she minded me writing this post, she was reluctant, saying that there were surely many more people who deserved it. Well, yes, there are plenty of people who deserve this Big Break, but I honestly think Emma should get it. I’d like to think she’d use the £1000 to actually give herself a proper break – something she hasn’t really had in many, many years – but I have a feeling she’d probably spend it on her family instead.

Who would you nominate? Go and nominate them now!

Giving a special someone a break by nominating them to win £1,000 is part of The Big Break campaign from Direct Debit . And, as well as putting someone forward for that £1,000 prize, if you s ign up to pay your bills by Direct Debit with a participating biller, you will be in with a chance of winning your very own Big Break to the tune of £10,000. At the same time, you’ll trigger a donation to charity – either to the biller’s own nominated charity or to Marie Curie Cancer Care.  You can find out more about the campaign herehttp://www.thebigbreak.co.uk .

Disclaimer: I have not been paid to write this post, but I believe there might be a bunch of flowers coming at some point for me and Emma. I would have happily written it without, though, as I think it’s great to recognise some of those unsung heroes in our communities – and help a very important charity along the way.