TMD Service Highlight - Memory Keepsakes

The ‘TMD Service Highlight’ series aims to showcase what our services achieve. We want to highlight what each service does and what it can create, so that you may better understand where your donations go, and why they are being used for specific services.

What is a Memory Keepsake?

The memory keepsake service was created to give our families a physical keepsake that could be a positive reminder of the wonderful memories they have created over their time with us. When we first registered as a charity in 2014, we wanted to give families a keepsake of the memories they made with their loved one that they could treasure and take anywhere. This also had to be a symbol of TMD, so the dragonfly memory pendant was designed. The TMD memory pendant is a silver dragonfly and has the name of the child engraved on the back. It is put on to a chain so that it can be worn, this allows the family to take a physical reminder of the memories wherever they may wish.

How has the service progressed since 2014?

With the help of our amazing TMD community, we were able to grow this service to help provide even more personalisation for the families we support.?

In the past few years, we have added multiple keepsakes to the service:?

• Hand casts

Hand casts allow our families to create beautiful sculptures of individual or holding hands, from the comfort of the home, hospital or the place of their choosing. Hand casts are created by Casting Gems & Helen Long.

• Fingerprint jewellery

Fingerprint Jewellery is created by Wendy Kemp Jewellery, who works with the family to design whatever jewellery they wish to make, with the added fingerprint of the TMD warrior. This can be done from the place of their choosing or in Wendy’s workshop.

• Hair and ashes jewellery

Hair and ashes can also be added to jewellery, with the help of Wendy Kemp.

• Memory teddy bears

Our most recent keepsakes, created by Trudy’s Textiles, are memory teddy bears. The bears are created from clothing or material that has significance to the family.

Memory keepsakes are so personal, that we want to be able to provide multiple options for our families, to allow them to choose how they want those memories to be represented. TMD services must grow and adapt to fulfil the needs of the families we support, to help make each day brighter when it seems difficult to do so.

What can you do to support?

Donating directly to a service allows you to know where your donation goes, supporting a specific service for one of our families. If you would like to support memory keepsakes:

• A donation of ￡55 provides a Dragonfly memory pendant

• A donation of ￡150 supports the creation of a hand cast

• A donation of ￡150 allows us to deliver a fingerprint, hair or ashes jewellery workshop

• A donation of ￡45 supports the creation of a memory teddy bear

Here are a few ways to support and donate, to keep services like this going:

• Head to our website or our JustGiving page

• Attend a TMD event (Find them here, this is our 10th year so there are quite a few to choose from!)

• Host an event, it can be anything from a cake sale to a skydive, the creativity is in your hands!

• Or text donate: To send a one-off donation, text TMDWISH to 70085 to donate ￡5. (Texts cost ￡5 plus one standard rate message)

To send a monthly donation, text DRAGONFLY to 70085 to donate ￡5 a month. (Texts cost ￡5 plus two standard rate messages)

If you wish to not receive future information from the charity, please add NOINFO after the word on your text.

Every donation, big or small, means we can continue to provide services such as memory keepsakes for our TMD families. Thank you for your support.