MSA Trust

The story behind one Milk, Sugar And Tea Party

Our guest blogger, 14-year-old Hollie, hosted her own tea party in memory of her grandpa.

My grandpa died of MSA on 30 January 2013. He had been poorly with various symptoms for a long time and was finally diagnosed with MSA 18 months before he died. As a family we had not heard of this disease but soon learnt how debilitating and distressing it was.

Since he died, our family have tried to do as much as we can to support the Trust as it relies on voluntary donations to fund their services and MSA Nurse Specialists.

After grandpa’s diagnosis, my grandma relied on the Trust for information and support as the disease is not understood by many GPs. Their MSA Nurse Specialist was very supportive and helpful. However, she could not visit my grand-parents as the Trust doesn’t have the resources to fund home visits.

In August 2014 my dad and his friend cycled 100 miles in the pouring rain and managed to raise over £5000. Recently, my uncle, Tom, did a half marathon with two of his colleagues.

When I registered for Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award with my school and realised that there was a volunteering section, my first thought was the MSA Trust. I did 12 hours volunteering which included hosting my own MSA Tea Party.

Hollie preparing for her tea party

Hollie preparing for her tea party

With the help of my parents, I sent out invitations to all our family and some of my friends. Around 30 people confirmed that they would be able to come, so we spent a few weeks beforehand planning what cakes to bake and ordering balloons, napkins and other bits for our orange theme. The night before, my mum and I had a ‘bake off’ in our kitchen and obviously I won!

Hollie’s mum’s MSA cupcakes

Hollie’s mum’s MSA cupcakes

I recreated the cake I made for my grandpa’s 70th birthday which was an ‘After Eight’ chocolate sponge cake. I made that for him as he really loved mint chocolates. My mum made vanilla MSA cupcakes that looked great.

On the day we spent the morning blowing up balloons before everybody arrived. We had plenty of visitors to our home in Twickenham, some coming from as far away as Essex and the Lake District. It was chaos for a while as everybody turned up at once. Everybody was very generous and we managed to raise £185 so far with a couple of donations still on their way from people who couldn’t make it.

We had lots of family, friends and neighbours round and everybody enjoyed it. Lots of cake was eaten and plenty of tea, squash and prosecco was drunk.


Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in the blogs published on these pages are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the MSA Trust.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Recent Posts

0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x