Too Young - a book about childhood parental bereavement

Tēnā koutou! 

As you have already been emailed, my Boosted campaign closed today after reaching $22,000.45 (the cents are important!)

The gloriously round number was due to an anonymous donor sneaking in at almost the last minute to round it up. Thank you, whoever you are! I love your style!

I truly never wanted to ask anyone for money in order to have this book published, but having done so it's been wonderful to gauge all the support and enthusiasm and interest out there. I can see you all believe that understanding what children experience when a parent dies, and supporting them through their grief, is a worthwhile endeavour. 

So, thank you!

Two things you may also like to do. Firstly, if you haven't, you might be interested in listening to my interview with Kathryn Ryan on RNZ this past Tuesday. Kathryn is also an ABC - adult bereaved as a child - so it was an interesting chat. 

Secondly, I have some of your emails but not all. If you kept your information hidden or anonymous, I don't know who you are or how to contact you, which means I can't let you know when the book is out. If you'd like to be updated, please to go the Too Young website, scroll to the bottom and add your email to register your interest in being notified when that momentous day arrives!

Until then, thank you, thank you, thank you for your support and encouragement. 

You have all given me and the Too Young project quite the boost. 

Ngā mihi nui,

Lee-Anne (and the 70+ other ABCs)  

Tēnā koutou!

Late last night, the Too Young Boosted campaign received the final donations that pushed it over its target  of $20,000. Such a huge amount!

That run was helped enormously by a $3000 donation from an anonymous person. My jaw really literally did drop when I received that email!

I can't thank that lovely donor personally, so I'll have to do it publicly - thank you so, so much for your breathtaking generosity. 

But reaching the target is down to all of you who have supported this work in what we all know are not the financially flushest of times. I cannot thank you enough. 

And you're all invited to the book launch next year! Yes, all 116 of you!

The campaign runs until Friday and I will keep it going as the extra money will mean I can offer books for free to organisations that work with bereaved children and their families – organisations such as Skylight, Grief Centre, KidsCan, Cancer Society. 

Free access to increased support services – along with improved death and grief literacy – is a huge driver of this work. This will become my focus once this book is published, so we can all "do death" better for children. 

Thank you many times over for all the wonderful support you've shown for the Too Young project. I like to think my mum, Lynore, would be happy something good can come of her death. In fact, I know she would be.

Take care, 

Lee-Anne

Just a quick update and extra thank you to all who have donated, as I am now just over 3/4 of the way to my target - 77% of the way, in fact, by the grace of 104 generous donors. 

Thank you so much once again for your support delivering our stories of childhood parental bereavement into the world to 'give help and hope' to people who experienced the death of a parent as a child, or those who may do so in the future. 

Ngā mihi nui, 

Lee-Anne

Kia ora!

This is an extra special thank you to all the "Anonymous" and "Hidden" donors who have contributed to publishing "Too Young". 

I don't know who you are so I can't thank you personally, but THANK YOU SO, SO MUCH FOR YOUR DONATION.

And an extra special thank you to the anonymous donor who this morning deposited a particularly large amount. That really gave my day a boost, and nudged the campaign over the $9k mark. 

A massive thank you to you, whoever you are. But, really, all and any donations are amazing, so thank you thank you thank you to you all. 

So appreciated. 

And, if you know of anyone else who might consider contributing to the Too Young boosted campaign, please share my page!

Once again, thank you so much. 

Lee-Anne

Kia ora, lovely donors!

I wanted to once again say thank you so much for your donation – it has contributed to the Too Young Boosted campaign cracking $8k just today!

I so appreciate your support getting our stories that "help and give hope" out into the world in published book form. Your donation gave me a real 'boost', so thank you. 

If you haven't already, please take a look at the website – www.tooyoung.org.nz – and read some of the stories. And if you're on Facebook, please like the Too Young page to keep up with more TY news: https://tinyurl.com/5bsduz9h 

And again, thank you for your support!

Ngā mihi nui,

Lee-Anne (and the 73 other NZers who want to share our stories to help generations of bereaved kids, past, present and future)