It’s that time of year again, Christmas, and it’s always a nice reminder to know that it’s all about ‘giving’ (well, it is nice to receive presents too, but you know what I mean!).
Here’s a vlog going to Chris Evan’s Virgin Radio show, where Chris wants to donate to my charity on behalf of his Carfest festival. What a surprise this was…
A few weeks ago, an email arrived in my box of messages wanting to give a donation to my charity, Superhero Foundation. I read it and sheepishly didn’t think much of the opportunity.
Maybe I set the expectation of the donation being too low? Maybe I was just being lazy and didn’t want to travel to London to receive it? Or maybe I’m just a bit stupid, who knows? Actually, let’s stick with the latter.
The email read,
Dear Jamie,
We understand Chris Evans’ met you at The Sun’s ‘Who Cares Wins’ awards and was very inspired by the Superhero Foundation and the support and help it offers to those in need. He would like the foundation to be a recipient of some of the funds raised by his family festival, CarFest.
CarFest North and South are two family festivals that have so far raised over £16million for UK Children’s Charities. In 2019 our charity partners included: BBC Children in Need, Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust, Teenage Cancer Trust, Rainbow and Starlight.
On Wednesday 20th November, we are hosting a breakfast party to celebrate the launch of tickets for CarFest 2020 which will take place at Virgin Radio with Chris Evans and his breakfast show team. During the celebration, we will be distributing cheques to the recipients of all the charity funds for 2019.
Please find your invitation attached for you and a guest. Please RSVP to me with your full name and your guest’s full name by Friday 15th November.
All the Best
Jasmine Hill
It’s true, I did meet Chris Evans at an awards night from The Sun called ‘Who Cares Wins’. Get me? Hanging out with the big celebs!
Attached with the email was this brightly coloured invitation:
In the end after a fair bit of thought of ‘how am I going to be in the centre of London at 7:30am?’, I decided to suck it up, worry about logistics later and and accept the invitation. It was a very generous invitation after all.
I also did notice the plus one, so I thought it would be best to invite my loved one along, Anna.
On arrival at the news building, (now I’m going to let you into a little secret), I started to think, it is Chris Evans that wants to donate, maybe he wants to donate something massive, like £5,000?
Then I had a second thought wave of ‘don’t be silly will you, it’s only going to be £500 or £1,000 at the very least.’
Walking into the Carfest ‘breakfast’ event, me and Anna suddenly realised we were at a party – there were singers, jugglers, even a man riding an ostrich (no joke).
After a little partying and a lot of coffee drank, Anna and I, along with the other charities, were asked to then go into Virgin Radio to meet Chris Evans where he would be giving the donation. I was sooooo excited, both to meet Chris and to receive the donation.
Landing into the Virgin studio, in true Chris Evans fashion, he wildly started to wave his hands saying ‘come on, sit down will you!’.
There was no hanging about, immediately the cheques started to be delivered to each charity…. £5,000… £10,000… along with some huge cheers!
Each donation kept getting bigger, going to some amazing charities, but I couldn’t help but notice that Superhero Foundation’s name still hadn’t been pulled out yet.
I felt like I was in a movie set and I was completely the wrong actor for the job. To say it was surreal would have been an understatement.
Then, the moment happened ‘for our next cheque we have a real life Superhero, Jamie McDonald, the founder of Superhero Foundation, we have a whooping amount……’
(Sorry, I’d like to give you the rest of the story, but I just wouldn’t do it justice. So here’s my vlog on YouTube where you see the donation being made and my ridiculous reaction – enjoy):
If you’d like to find out more about Carfest and you’d like to buy tickets, you can here. And if you’d like to donate like Chris did, you can here, it really will make a big difference.