News Release

December 2008

For Claire and Gemma Edwards volunteering is a way of life.  But then when your Mum, Gill Edwards, is Feed The Children’s area fundraising manager for Wales and has always worked in the voluntary sector, you do find yourself drawn in to help!  It is a wonderful grounding for life.

Recently they have helped Mum at the Big Balloon Festival in Blackwood, at a Wildlife Weekend at Caerphilly Garden Centre and at a major dinner for Feed The Children’s benefit at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London. Not leaving it there they have also taken leaflets into work and nominated Feed The Children for Charity of the Year at Endemol.

“Finding volunteer help can be difficult,” says Gill, “but when you have family volunteers on hand it makes my job so much easier.  Whenever you introduce a charity into a new area it always takes a while to get volunteers on board so it is fantastic that I already have my own little network.

“We have so many great campaigns coming up,” continues Gill.  “The Jiggers campaign is about to be launched, we have Feed The Children’s Eat A Breakfast, Save A Life Campaign in February and then in April we have the first ever nine peak challenge, happening here in Wales in Snowdonia.  So there are plenty of volunteer opportunities in Wales.”

27-year old Claire is an assistant producer in television, having achieved her degree in Film Studies at Aberystwyth University.  She then took a gap year and travelled. She has since worked and played hard and last January she went to Africa on holiday, visiting both Tanzania and Malawi where Feed The Children has worked. She was greatly impacted by a visit to one village. Normally the children crowd around looking for gifts and money but one young girl, about 6 or 7, who was carrying a younger sibling on her hip, came up to Claire and just held her hand for the whole time they were there.

Says Claire, “She didn’t ask for anything just wanted to hold my hand. She just seemed to want a big sister. Someone to take care of her in the way that she was taking care of someone smaller than her.  When I told Mum she agreed that this was probably so.”

Actress, 25-year-old Gem, who wants to work in musical theatre, works at an exclusive private fitness club when she is ‘resting’. She did a double honours degree in History and Drama at St. Mary’s College, Twickenham, part of the University of Surrey. She worked for a year and then did a year at Redroofs to enhance her career opportunities and learn dance. Gem has always been interested in drama and musical theatre and belonged to Selsig, a well known Amateur Dramatic Society in South Wales, doing shows such as Annie and King’s Rhapsody. She too has traveled and has been to much of Europe and America.

Says Gill, “Both my daughters love life. They are strong, independent young women with loads of friends from all walks of life. They love volunteering for FTC because they enjoy working for the charity plus they know how passionate I am about the vital work that we do. Claire and Gem have been extremely moved by the pictures and the stories about the work that Feed The Children does. As I have worked in the Voluntary sector since they were small, they grew up volunteering and helping out at events etc, so its just second nature to them.”

“They have also undertaken voluntary work independently too at Uni and Redroofs, and with friends who are involved in different things, so it’s part of their nature to give something back to society.

“They are also good at recruiting friends to help with events,” says Gill, “and using their networks of contacts to find information for me. They use Facebook etc. which is quite alien to me but works for them and I benefit.”