Readers mail….
From Sue Tilt….Tulips….
It was an amazing Pink October during difficult times
The month started with Auriana Stevens walking over 15 marathons. Lil Small walking 10,000 steps a day, ‘Pink’ Wild Goose Chase, Maureen and Kurt’s 12 hour bowl-a-thon, Driftwood Hawaiian Beach Party, Meryem’s Hotel Afternoon Tea, Susie & Martin’s Mayhem Show, Stan’s monthly quizzes at The Black Olive and The Taj, King’s Pink Bowling Night, Arts & Craft ‘Pink’ Market (Joya), Veni Vici Halloween Party, M&M’s Pink Bingo, and of course our Pink Day which included huge support from our younger generation at GAU, Necat British College and Suat Gunsel Koleji.
In March 2021 Tulips issued a statement that we are about to close. The second lockdown of the country had just been put into action by the government and our income had gone down to less than 10% of what we needed to survive. Having put out a plea of help, we were extremely lucky to have had the support of both the expat community and the Turkish community in the UK which kept us afloat for 3½ months by which time we were able to start slowly having small fundraisers.
We are still limping from month to month however Pink October has been an injection of life by allowing us to not only meet the expenses of the Oncology staff for a month but also allow us for the first time to be able to financially help with ease those patients who would otherwise not have treatment at all due to lack of personal and association funds.
A statement from Raziye Kocaismail (Chairperson of Tulips/KHYD):
“You are saving us with Pink October and it is largely down to the expat community. The local community hasn’t recovered from Covid and now we see the TL dropping in value and the cost of goods and essential services is going up in price. This is making it very difficult for the Turkish people to contribute in the way they did before Covid. Thank you for your support it has meant the world to us.
You have raised a magnificent 202,300.61TL! “
We thought we would receive 130,000 to 150,000 but you have broken all our expectations.
The money you have raised has paid 2 months oncology staff wages plus allowed us to financially help cancer patients.
There are so many of you to thank for dipping into your pockets to support these events that we just can’t list you all but we thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for everything you have done. We would like to say a special thank you to Creditwest Bank who sponsor so many Tulips events and physically take part, you once again stepped in when we needed help the most.
From our cancer patients, we thank you for all your help.”
Sue Tilt
0542 854 8714
Tulips/ Help Those With Cancer Association
(Kanser Hastalarina Yardim Dernegi)
