The success story of Tulips
with Sue Tilt and Carole King continues
By Sue Tilt and Carole King…….
It has been over 4 years since we both got together to raise funds for Tulips – Help Those With Cancer Association. In that time we have raised in excess of 560,000TL but more importantly we have raised the awareness of the Association and what it does to help cancer patients, irrespective of their nationality, in the TRNC.
During that time we have met so many warm hearted and generous people and made loads of new friends. We have held functions, and many of you have 
held functions for us, covering all parts of the TRNC. Raising funds via raffles, social events, sponsored events, concerts, birthdays, weddings, ‘in memory of’ events, mufti days, competitions, even a Fiddlathon. Schools have supported us in so many ways, businesses and other charities and associations have either taken part and/or sponsored our activities and we have dressed up in outrageous outfits in outrageous places!!! etc……
We also instigated the Expat Cancer Support Team, which has proved to be an invaluable service to expat cancer patients.
When we set out, our very first fundraising event took place at Soyz Market on Sunday 6th March 2011, at this time we had no idea how successful it would be or how much support we were about to receive from everyone over the next 4 plus years. It has been a journey that we have both 
thoroughly enjoyed for a cause that we believe to be extremely important, run by an inspiring lady who we have both come to love, Raziye Kocaismail.
It has been a huge commitment and at times was 7 days a week and very often felt like 24 hours a day job, the most time consuming work being the ‘behind the scenes work’ ensuring all our fundraising events have been legal, above board and documented.
So, we have come to a very difficult decision which has caused us to think long and hard about where we go from here and both of us now feel that we have completed our journey and that we need to take time out to get our lives back to normal and support our families which we have not been able to do effectively since our first event in March 2011. We have therefore decided to take a break from our fundraising activities, but we would still like to ask you all to continue to support Tulips in any way you can in order to ensure the help now provided continues for all cancer patients, some of which will definitely be from the expat community!
We are committed to continue to run the Tulips stall at Lambousa Market on a Saturday and to that end we would very much appreciate your continued 
support in donating your unwanted items. However this will be the only fundraising activity that we will be involved in for the foreseeable future.
To contact us in the future for all matters relating to the Lambousa Market stall you can call Sue on 0533 842 8713 (West) or Carole on 0533 865 9795 (East).
For all other fundraising events or general (not health) enquiries we would ask you kindly to contact Seda Avcan on 0542 8823658 or email sedaavcan@khyd.org
The Association has been around for 22 years, providing care, advice and support to all cancer patients and continues to provide an invaluable service that would otherwise not be available, this is such an important Service which must continue to exist and be supported.
The Tulips website which we have set up will now be run by Pam Kennedy and Jayne Matter however we will continue to promote the Tulips Facebook page and will be happy to post about any events or information that needs to be publicised.
Finally it just remains for both of us to thank all of you who have been part of our lives and supported us over this period of time. We have been staggered by your generosity, your kindness and all your support whenever and wherever there has been a Tulips event. You have helped to make our fundraising both successful but most importantly enjoyable. Without you we could not have done it, please accept our heartfelt thanks for your support in the past and we sincerely hope that you will also continue your support in the future.
Please, please, please if anyone in the expat community would like to help organise and run Tulips fundraising events their help and support would be invaluable. Please contact Seda Avcan to discuss further – don’t forget THERE BUT BY THE GRACE OF GOD GO I.
