The grateful grandma
is a lovely mystery

By Sarah Johnson
EVERY DAY we receive donations and letters explaining how, and why, you’ve decided to support our appeal.
There are readers who have organised raffles, couples who have held their wedding anniversaries in our name and those who have run a half-marathon. 
Then there are the schoolgirls who charge their parents to get into rooms in their own home or sell old toys and organise tombolas. 
Whatever their method they all had one goal and that was to raise as much money as possible for sick children across Scotland.
But we feel it’s equally important to mention those who send us donations with no name, no story and no way of thanking them.
A special mention has to go to “A grandmother of 12 healthy grandchildren”.
Blessed
The woman from Edinburgh sent us a cheque for £1000 simply because she felt blessed that none of her children, or their children, had needed hospital care — and she wanted to help those who did.
This came the same week as a £200 cheque from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, a £200 and three £100 cheques from Glasgow, a £100 postal order from Durham and a further £100 from Uddingston and Edinburgh.
Many donations come from thankful parents and grandparents, others from those whose children have needed care in the past and wanted to help children like their own.
One Glasgow donor wrote simply “from a grateful grandma”. That mysterious message had a cheque attached. What was her story, we wonder?
And only last week we received £50 from “a pensioner who doesn’t have much money but wanted to help the children”. She hadn’t even told her husband she’d donated the money.
Secret 
So we’ll keep her little secret! Shhhhh. Thanks also to the Bellshill Orange and Purple District Lodge No. 8 for their donation of £100 and Stonelaw Women’s Guild, who raised £85 from the proceeds of their penny jar.
Because of the generosity of all these readers that we’ve mentioned here our total has now reached £140,000.
There have been many other donations, though, in small amounts or large.
One woman sent in the money she’d been collecting in a jar. She hadn’t been saving for anything special, just putting notes or coins in from time to time and when she read about our appeal she decided the contents would be better off helping the children than sitting in her kitchen doing nothing.
It doesn’t have to be a huge amount though, every last penny — and we have had a few small donations but they all add up — will make a big difference to sick children in Scotland. 
And for that we thank you very much.

You can e-mail us at: hospitals@sundaypost.com