Brinsea Donates TLC-30 in Recognition of Edie’s Efforts
Toni emailed us to let us know that her daughter Edie has raised over £1,000 to buy two Brinsea incubators for Pickering Hedgehog Rescue, We think that Edie and Toni are hedgehog heroes!
‘My daughter, Edie is 8 years old. In April, early on in lockdown, she discovered that we had a hedgehog visiting our garden. Edie started to put food out and we set up a garden camera, not long after, we were delighted to get some footage of a hedgehog pulling up a worm in the garden. Edie made a feeding station and we soon found that they were frequent visitors and Edie loves watching the footage. She found out more about hedgehogs, realised that they are endangered, so during Hedgehog Awareness Week in May she made a poster to tell people how to help hedgehogs and displayed it in the window and she asked her Dad to make a hedgehog house for the garden.
She wanted to do more to help. In June, after seeing a YouTube clip on how to make soap we had the idea to make some to sell to raise money for our local hedgehog rescue centre, Pickering Hedgehog Rescue. We bought some flower moulds as well as a hedgehog one and she started production in our kitchen. She made 6 to start with as she didn’t know how well they would sell and we advertised them on my Facebook page, she also did a promotional video which she wanted me to put on my Facebook page to advertise her soaps. (An added bonus was that we were covering lots of areas of her lockdown schoolwork while we were at it without Edie even realising!). We ended up getting orders for 90 soaps and production had to be halted several times while we waited for more soap base to arrive!!
Knowing that Deryn needed a new Brinsea incubator at the rescue for the hoglets and very ill hogs, Edie decided in August that she wanted to do one of the Children’s Challenges – a sponsored bike ride, to complete 35km (21.7 miles) in a month. Sponsors started to come in as she did her first 2 stages, first a 6.5 mile ride then an 8.5 mile ride. She set herself a challenge of getting to £1,000, I remember her saying if Captain Tom could do it then she could! She was already over halfway there! She did her final stage of her bike ride on 4 September completing 14.4 miles, bringing her total to 29.5 miles. On 10 September, having received over £500 in sponsorship she had reached her target! What an amazing achievement. She was delighted that she’d made enough to help Deryn get her new incubator and we are thrilled that she won’t just be getting one but two! Edie is still making soap!’
Brinsea’s Managing Director, Ian Pearce, was so impressed with Edie’s efforts to raise money for the rescue that he donated another incubator to her in recognition of her hard work. Deryn told Brinsea that a TLC-30 would allow her to collect any injured hogs or hoglets in the car as they are designed to be portable and can be used with an in-car power adaptor or in the recue via the mains supply. The incubator can be heating up on the way to collect the poorly hedgehog or hoglet, and be at just the right temperature to allow them to gradually warm up whilst they are transported back to the rescue.
Ian said, ‘Edie has worked tremendously hard to raise money for a cause that she is passionate about. We are so impressed with her dedication to hedgehogs that we thought we would make a donation to the rescue on her behalf. We hope that our portable TLC-30 incubator will help Deryn to provide the best possible environment to help hedgehogs and hoglets to make a good recovery.’
Edie’s mum, Toni, told us that Edie’s fundraising efforts are continuing this year. Edie is planning to walk 1,000 miles over the course of the 2021 to raise even more money for the hedgehog rescue. Edie has definitely earned the title of Hedgehog Hero!