A little bit of good, one book at a time – and growing…
When you shop with Picture-This Books, you can buy a book, or books, for one – and support two. For every purchase of The Imagination Garden (our first book), The Light Inside (our second book), and Rainbow Maker (our fourth book), either from one of our carefully selected retailers or directly from us, a second book will be donated to charity and gifted to a child.
We plan to expand our charity commitment as we grow, with each book eventually connected to a different charity.
For now, though, the charity that Picture-This Books™ will be supporting through sales of The Imagination Garden is NACOA UK, the charity that we will be supporting through sales of The Light Inside is Spark UK, and the charity that we will be supporting through sales of Rainbow Maker is Children with Cancer Fund (CWCF).
You can find out more about NACOA UK, Spark UK, and CWCF, and our reasons for supporting these charities, on this page. Click on the charity name above to visit their websites.
LETTER OF AUTHORITY FROM NACOA
To whom it may concern 04/10/2019
This is a letter of authority for Holly Wadsworth-Hill to donate copies of ‘The Imagination Garden’ book to Nacoa (the National Association for Children of Alcoholics), a small national charity set up in 1990 to provide information, advice and support for everyone affected by a parent’s drinking.
Since 1990, we’ve responded to over 355,000 requests for help from children as young as five who find the courage to call or email the Nacoa Helpline knowing they can remain anonymous, able to talk about what they want, in their own time and without judgment or time limits. Some children contact once, others over a number of weeks, months or years. Sometimes they call at the point of crisis and we remain with them on the phone; a kindly voice in what might seem a hostile world.
Our work is all about planning for a positive future. An opportunity for children and young people to see that the world can be different from the one they’ve always known and that they can, with help, go on to live happy and fulfilled lives and break the cycle of addiction.
A copy of the Annual Report and information about the charity is available to view on www.nacoa.org.uk.
Hilary A Henriques MBE
Chief Executive
Why NACOA?
Things are about to get a bit heavy. Bear with. It’s important.
My Mum raised my sister and me on her own, though that was something I hardly noticed as a child – she played both roles, and she played them brilliantly. A real super-Mum. And then something happened.
When I was about 11 years old, my Mum began drinking heavily. She was in an abusive relationship and started using alcohol to numb the pain. The relationship ended after about six months, but unfortunately, the drinking did not. At first, my mum drank to escape, but before long, she drank because she felt guilty for drinking. And so, her cycle of addiction began.
My mum died in a hospice, surrounded by family, on the 7th of December 2012 – 17 years after her addiction began. She had been in and out of the hospital and admitted to intensive care more times than I could count. She had been treated in some of the best rehab clinics in the country and spent the best part of a year homeless.
As the child of an alcoholic, it is almost impossible to believe that things won’t stay the same forever. The weight of despair can be crushing when you’re living through such a dark time, and a parent is drinking. I am living proof that things can change and get better, but I still vividly remember that sense of loneliness and fear. I miss my Mum every day, and I will always feel guilty that I couldn’t stop her from drinking. As a child, I would use reading and writing to take me away from reality. I’d close my bedroom door and lose myself in other worlds. Happier places. I helped my Mum keep her drinking a secret for several years.
I thought I was protecting her, and I was embarrassed. Eventually, she was admitted to the hospital, and the truth came out. Thankfully I had grandparents and other family members in my life – all shocked and wracked with guilt. They knew Mum ‘liked a drink’, but they hadn’t seen how bad things were behind closed doors. Unfortunately, not everyone has the support network that I had; without it, I do not know where I would be now.
I tell you this not to win sympathy or sales but because my Mum’s addiction gripped hold of her and consumed her from the inside out. It tore our family apart and broke the strongest woman I have ever known. Alcoholism is an illness. It cost my mother her life, and it changed our family forever.
And the worst bit? This is far from an isolated experience. Did you know that 1 in 5 people in the UK is affected by their parent’s drinking?
NACOA UK is run by some of the kindest and most caring people I have ever met. It is their life’s work to make a difference and show support to children of alcoholics and their families, and I am incredibly proud to be doing my bit to help them. For every purchase of The Imagination Garden, a second will be donated to Nacoa UK and gifted to a child living in challenging circumstances.
If you are reading this and have been affected by a parent’s drinking, or you know someone who is, you can call NACOA’s free helpline on 0800 358 3456 or email: helpline@Nacoa.org.uk for information, advice and support. Your call will not appear on a landline bill, and you can tell them as much or as little as you want. They are there to listen, and they won’t judge you. So please remember you have nothing to be sorry for; it is not your fault, and you will not feel like this forever.
Holly, author of The Imagination Garden & founder of Picture-This Books™
Why SPARK UK?
Sparking conversations around mental health and using their voices for change
I discovered the Spark UK team a couple of years ago when they were even more fresh-faced than they are now. You see, that’s the first thing that struck me about them – they are young people. And I don’t mean confident go-getting Apprentice-style 20-somethings here, I mean actual school kids formed Spark UK. It’s hard not to write about them without sounding patronising, so forgive me for a minute whilst I gush over them. When writing (and adding them to our list of charities), the award-winning team at Spark UK are aged between 15 and 17 years old. I KNOW! This means they were under 16 when they started fundraising and mental health advocacy.
Now, I don’t know what you did with your teenage years, but I, for one certainly wasn’t changing the world!
Through various projects, Spark UK is spreading the word throughout their local and online community and schools throughout the UK. Spark UK is starting tricky conversations and raising awareness (as well as funds) to engage, support and promote mental health awareness and understanding.
In 2022 alone, Spark UK won a Rotary Young Citizen Award at the Volunteer Expo in Birmingham and a Prince of Wales Award at the Devon County Show.
I was blown away when I first read about them, and 2.5 years later, I still smile when I see what they’re up to and learn about their latest achievements. These young people are being the change, and I adore them.
Each time someone buys a copy of The Light Inside, we will donate a second copy to the Spark UK team, along with a resource guide, so that the books can be used by the children that Spark UK support.
Click HERE to view Spark UK’s online resources and view their awesome All-Star Advent Calendar HERE.
Holly, author of The Light Inside & founder of Picture-This Books
Why Children with Cancer Fund?
We were inundated when I asked our Instagram community for charity partnership recommendations. Children with Cancer Fund were flagged to us more than any other charity, so I put them straight on our shortlist. Choosing our partner charities is difficult when every charity deserves much more than they receive.
Children with Cancer Fund stood out to me because of their dedicated focus on the child living with cancer, and their anxious siblings. They work tirelessly to offer practical support that ensures childhood innocence remains protected despite the best efforts of this awful disease and an arduous treatment journey.
Children with Cancer Fund intend to send donated copies of Rainbow Maker directly to children living with cancer.
Rainbow Maker is a story of hope and possibility. In this Picture-This Books book, the world has lost its colour, and all is grey and miserable. Yet, page by page, the child ventures deeper and deeper into their imagination – gradually restoring one colour at a time – until the whole world shines.
This book centres around the power of hope and the eternal joy of childhood.
I hope it can bring some joy to the wonderful and brave children this great charity supports.
Click HERE to visit the Children with Cancer Fund website.
Holly, author of Rainbow Maker & founder of Picture-This Books
Letter of authority from Spark UK
To whom it may concern 16/11/22
This is a letter of authority for Holly Wadsworth-Hill to donate copies of ‘The Light Inside’ book to Spark UK (Devon) CIC. Spark UK is a mental health organisation run by young people for young people. Our aim is to ‘Spark The conversation around mental health’. We create a range of mental health resources and campaigns for schools across the UK.
Founded in 2020, Spark UK currently has around 300 schools from across the UK signed up to use our bespoke mental health resources. Our team is comprised of teenagers who want to make a difference within their community and across the country. As well as creating resources, we spend lots of time advocating for mental health through interviews, forums and public speaking.
Our work is all about raising awareness of youth mental health and giving young people the platform to advocate for mental health,
You can find out more about Spark UK at our website: www.sparkuk.co.uk
Conor Warren, CEO & Founder
Letter of authority from Children with Cancer Fund
12/04/2023
This is a letter of authority for Holly Wadsworth-Hill to donate copies of her ‘Rainbow Maker’ book to Children with Cancer Fund, a small charity that provides a much loved and valued service for the community. We aim to alleviate the suffering of children who have/had cancer and their families across East Sussex, Brighton and Hove. The children we support have varying diagnoses and prognoses, some go into remission and others devastatingly lose their lives to cancer.
The way we primarily achieve this is by hosting social events, granting wishes and providing holidays in one of our three caravans but ultimately, we do whatever we can to support our families.
These books will be amazing as part of our packs that we send our newly referred child who has just joined the family at CWCF after being diagnosed with Cancer. They will provide a greatly needed distraction whilst in hospital undergoing gruelling treatment or as a creative escape whilst going through it all.
Children With Cancer Fund (CWCF) was born on 10th July 1998 around a table. Four people had two ideas of something they wanted to make a difference to: Cancer & Children. We decided to put them together and from that day on Children with Cancer Fund was born. Since then, we (as a charity) have grown and gone from strength to strength. We were honoured to receive the Queens Award for Voluntary Service, the highest accolade a charity can get. As well as this year (2023) being voted ‘best non-profit charity’ in Sussex.
We are a small charity, and we know the small things in life are what matters. We leave the ‘Meet a Star’ or medical research to the charities that are best placed to do that. We know what can make a day-to-day difference to a family with a child with cancer.
Buying a parking permit or replacing a school uniforms is just two examples of the small things we can help with that will make a BIG difference. We want to help facilitate in this awful time by ensuring families can focus on what’s truly important – their children.
We are currently supporting over 150 families across East Sussex, Brighton & Hove. All the time childhood cancer is around… We will be here. Standing side by side next our amazing warrior families doing whatever it takes to support them whilst they go through what no family ever should.
You can find out more about us via our website: www.childrenwithcancerfund.org.uk
Chris Downton
CWCF Founder