BBC TV’S ONE SHOW APPEARANCE SPARKS OTHERS TO SEEK SUPPORT

This summer, you might have spotted us on BBC TV’s The One Show, which aired the story of Toby’s project – our 45^th project and the biggest to date.

The film explains the emotional background behind this project. 16-year-old Toby has quadriplegic cerebral palsy and dystonia, affecting his muscle control. He is also deaf, is fed directly into his bowel and requires 24/7 care.

Toby’s father, Shaun, was working on a home extension and renovation so that his son could have the facilities to support more round-the-clock palliative care. He was planning to continue work on the family home during the Christmas period but tragically took his own life on Christmas Eve.

Amid this unimaginable grief and with their home still like a building site, mum Sarah reached out to us for help.

More than 150 tradespeople from across the UK answered the call. We not only completed Toby’s room but also completed all the unfinished rooms in the house (including bedrooms and bathrooms for his brother and sister), as well as landscaped the front and back of the house.

The completion of the project has transformed the family home from a building site into, in Sarah’s words, “a poignant legacy for Shaun”. It also means that Sarah can finally get overnight support for Toby.

We do love shouting about our projects, particularly life-changing ones like Toby’s, which is why it was so tricky to keep this project quiet for two weeks – as The One Show wanted to have the exclusive first UK broadcast of this story of kindness for a family experiencing such harrowing loss. If you follow our projects on social media, you’ll know that we typically post progress films at the end of each day. We had to dial this down and keep things under wraps until the end of the embargo.

Then, the floodgates opened. Since the broadcast, the story has featured across more than 300 trade, regional, national and international news outlets.

Amazingly, as a direct result of seeing us on The One Show, we had 74 people reaching out to us in the hours after the film was broadcast. It may not sound like much, but it’s 74 people who wouldn’t have otherwise either heard of our charity or reached out. And the requests for support keep coming in.

We are grateful to The One Show for shining a spotlight on our support for those in the construction industry and their families who are facing tough times. This project – and all our others – wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work of our volunteers and the generosity of our project sponsors, material donors and well-wishers. This support means we can keep helping those in need, providing help that can truly change lives.