Your Champions 2011: Boughton grandmother recognised for years of fundraising with award nomination

Oct 26 2011 by Katie Bamber, Chester Chronicle

Your Champions 2011: Boughton grandmother recognised for years of fundraising with award nomination

A BOUGHTON grandmother who has devoted years to helping others has been nominated for the Your Champions volunteer award.

Sylvia Fay, of Barley Croft, Boughton, has spent decades helping to improve the lives of hundreds of orphans in Asia and Africa.

She fundraises for David Livingstone International, a charity which helps children escape poverty through education.

“I can’t remember when it started – it was many, many years ago when I was a Brown Owl and a Korean orphanage wanted some jackets, because in Korea it gets very, very cold,” said Sylvia, 81.

“We managed to buy 12 jackets. After that, every year we did something for the David Livingstone Foundation.”

After the Korean orphanage she was supporting managed to buy its own field, Sylvia began raising funds for orphans from the Philippines.

But the grandmother-of-five also finds time to help those closer to home.

She is the co-founder and organiser of The Monday Club, a weekly senior citizens’ social club held at the New Church, Dicksons Drive.

The club, which Sylvia set up 21 years ago, invites speakers, organises quizzes, celebrates members’ birthdays and finishes each session with a game of bingo.

Members go on regular outings and are currently preparing for a five-day holiday to Dunoon.

“I know a lot of elderly people don’t get out and going somewhere like that - it’s not somewhere they’re forced to go to, it’s not somewhere they ought to go for their health,” said Sylvia.

“It’s something they choose to do and they enjoy meeting each other.”

Sylvia was nominated by friend Jean Barnes. The pair met in 1980 and set up The Monday Club together.

She said: “She had been collecting for years before and making hundreds of craft works which she sells at church fairs, schools – anywhere she can hire a table – and all the money goes to charity.

“Sylvia is in her eighties now and myself and all members of The Monday Club agree it would be great for her to be recognised for all the work, time and effort she puts in.”