Fundraising Ideas

Do you enjoy cycling? Then get on your bike for Age NI! Whether you are an experienced cyclist or just looking for a rewarding challenge, we’ll help you get to the finish line.

Why not hold an Easter fundraiser? Organise egg-painting, hide miniature chocolate eggs for people to find or create a treasure hunt by leaving clues around a local park.

Quiz nights take place in pubs across the country and are always popular. Why not organise your own and raise funds for Age NI?

Encourage your colleagues to bring in home-baked (or shop-bought) goodies to sell in the office. It’s a simple way to raise money and will perk up the morning coffee break!

Celebrate Grandparents Day on the first Sunday in October. Organise a party and ask people to make a donation.

You could sell homemade products like crafts and traditional foods from other countries or set up a face painting stall for children.

Helping Hands is a great way to get children involved in their community, help them learn responsibility and raise money for people in later life. Children draw a pair out of hands on an A4 page and fill the hands up with coins that they earn by doing odd jobs for people. Tasks for children include:

• Tidying their bedroom
• Gardening
• Helping set the table
• Folding all their clothes up at the end of the night
• Keeping a neighbour company

One person's rubbish is another's treasure. Get people to bring all the things they no longer use and sell them to raise money for Age NI.

Our assembly plan will encourage pupils to think about older people and learn about the contribution that they make to our society. The assembly is interactive and celebrates people in later life, while demonstrating the support that age sometimes needs.

Narrator

Age NI delivers care services, provides advice and information, campaigns, fundraises and influences our decision-makers to improve later life for you, your parents, your grandparents and your older relatives and neighbours.

Interaction

Think about ways that older people make a big contribution to your life and the lives of your friends and family. Get those thinking caps on and think of examples, e.g. perhaps your grandparent looks after a young child in your family so that their parents can go out to work? Get into groups of five and discuss these ideas. After ten or fifteen minutes, one member of the group presents to the assembly about the variety of ways that older people make a positive difference to the world around us.

Preparation

Choose five volunteers to come up to the front of the assembly. Have five tables ready with a pad and pen.

You will need:

• some earmuffs
• lots of pairs of gloves
• strong prescriptions glasses

Activity

Please get your volunteers to wear the props: 1 pair of earmuffs, two pairs of gloves and a pair of glasses then ask volunteers to try and draw a picture or write a short letter while wearing their props. The task is to show the difficulty older people face with their senses impaired. The earmuffs are to show the difficulty hearing, the gloves are to show the difficulty doing menial tasks with stiff, arthritic joints and the glasses are to show the weakened vision that occurs.

Discussion

Discuss with the pupils some fun memories and stories of their grandparents or older friends and relatives. Talk about why they are positive roles models, what interesting things they do in their spare time, what can be learned from them and why they should be recognised and respected. Finally discuss what steps the pupils are going to take to show respect to older people within the community.

Take on the ultimate charity challenge event - Skydive for Age NI!

54% of older people tell us that loneliness is a huge problem for them. Host a sponsored silence and think about older people who sit in silence everyday, with no one to speak to or keep them company.

Fancy a big adventure? Trek for Age NI! Choose from our great selection of walking treks - ranging from Africa and Asia to America and Europe.

Invite your work colleagues or the pupils at your school to wear their hat for a day to make them think about staying warm in winter. Whether it’s a bobble hat or a panda hat, for a suggested donation of £2, you get to accessorise, raise money for Age NI and increase awareness of the issues faced by people in later life.

Let your imagination run wild - your event can involve absolutely anything you can think of!