Love Kate's help provide monthly Extra Smiles Cards for Post Pals
Since we first shared with you last May news of Love Kate’s work to support charity Post Pals, Kate has been a regular supporter, sourcing and providing donations from Love Kate’s, of fifty greeting cards a month for the charity.
You may remember Post Pals help people to ‘Post a Smile on a Sick Child’s Face’ by sending greeting cards, letters, and gifts to seriously ill children and their siblings in the UK. Post Pals, originally approached Love Kate’s to ask for a little discount to purchase fifty of Kate’s best-selling pop-up greeting cards. The pop-ups would be sent to the charity’s ‘Pals’ (very sick children, many of whom have a chronic illness or terminal illness). Second Nature, who publish the award winning pop-ups, were keen to support too, donating the cards half-and-half with Kate.
The cards were sent in May 2016 and the children loved them.
Read the full stories here:
Pal Owen with his Pop-Up Card
Post Pals is a small charity run entirely by volunteers, so they rely on normal people to support them, both with donations, but mainly, to keep sending cards, letters and gifts to the children.
To help encourage the sending of cards Love Kate’s set up a discount code for supporters to use in Kate's online card shop.
By simply adding the code POSTPALS at the Love Kate’s checkout customers receive a 10% discount on their order.
Kate agreed to continue to support Post Pals in finding suitable special greeting cards to send to the Pals every month as part of the charity’s monthly Extra Smiles projects. Kate’s well respected in the UK card industry and was confident more card publishers would help Kate and Love Kate’s make a difference to Pals in the future.
So what’s happened since the Pop-Ups?
June 2016
Love Kate’s donated cards from a range available at Love Kate’s. A box of blank Tracks greeting cards with cats and dogs wearing hats.
July 2016
UK Greetings kindly donated more than fifty cards from their Disney Original range. Kate sent the cards to volunteer writer Annette, who wrote the Extra Smile cards and sent them to the Pals.
August 2016
Publisher Card Mix kindly donated enough cards for all the Pals from their popular Once Upon A Time range. These fairy tale themed cards were warmly received by the children.
September 2016
UK Greetings again donated more than fifty blank greeting cards from their Disney Quotes range and their Marvel Comic range.
October 2016
Kate approached greeting card guru Jeremy at Blue Eyed Sun asking for a donation of their Crochet Critters cards. They arrived within days and Kate forwarded them to Elizabeth, the volunteer writer for the month.
November 2016
Hoping to surprise the children with a special card this month, Kate approached Woodmansterne and asked them to donate fifty of their Advent Calendar Cards. Woodmansterne agreed to discount the cards to Kate and Love Kate’s donated them to Post Pals. The Pals received their cards in November, ready to open the first door on the 1st of December.
Safaa with her Advent Calendar Card
Dec 2016
Christmas is a special time of the year for many, but for Pals and their families, often it can be a very hard time. Kate remembered how popular the initial Pop-Up cards were, and the smiles on the faces of the children who received them and knew she had the perfect card for Christmas. Love Kate’s donated fifty Second Nature Petite Pop-Up Cards. This lovely range of smaller Pop-Up cards come with a string for hanging them on the Christmas tree. Post Pals’ Sarah wrote a mix of angel, owl, snowmen, nativity and Santa cards and sent them off to the Pals.
Kennedy with her Petite Pop-up Chrismas card
January 2017
Kate spotted an exciting range of 3D lenticular cards in an Autumn edition of Industry Magazine ‘Progressive Greetings’ and approached Carte Blanche to ask if they would be willing to help. A wonderful range of more than sixty open designs arrived at Love Kate’s within a few days, and Kate sent them off to volunteer Elizabeth for writing and posting.
Ebonie enjoying her Tatty Ted 3D Card
What's next?
Kate hopes to continue to receive support from the Greeting Card Industry in order to help the Post Pals Charity to continue their wonderful work sending Extra Smiles to poorly children.
Post Pals volunteer Sarah would like to send light-up cards and noisy sound cards later this year:
“They would be perfect for tapping into another sensory aspect for our pals”
Sarah explained to Kate.
Kate’s committed to work hard this year to keep finding cards and wherever possible ensuring they can be donated free of charge to the Charity.
Greeting cards are a passion for Kate:
"A hand-picked card, and a carefully worded personal message, really can make people smile. And that’s what it’s all about."
If you would like to find out more about Post Pals, please visit their website. Anyone can get involved and send a card to a Pal.
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