Northampton girl, 12, raises more than £1K for hospital by dedicating time to making treat boxes

A Northampton girl has dedicated a lot of her spare time during the last few months to making treat boxes and raising money for the hospital.

Evie Kendall, from Wootton, began making letterbox treat boxes, including sweets and a hand-written personalised note, at the start of this year to help give people a pick-me-up when they were missing family and growing tired of lockdown.

The 12-year-old was keen to thank the NHS by raising money for Northampton General Hospital - specifically the children’s wards.

Evie’s younger brother was cared for by the Paddington ward when he was a baby and the Disney ward helped Evie herself when she broke both wrists.

Evie said: “I wanted to do this because the NHS has worked really hard with everything they have done so I wanted to raise money for them.

“They are such amazing people to do what they do.

“I really enjoyed making the boxes. It was really fun making sure they were right and they had the beautiful notes in them.”

During the three months in which Evie made the boxes, she raised £1,104 for the wards by sending boxes across the country and even one to Germany.

On some occasions, she would have 20 to 30 orders a day to complete after school whereby she had to pack the boxes, write the note and label with addresses.

Helen Kendall, Evie’s mum, added: “Evie has raised money for the hospital before by making cupcakes.

“Then when we were in lockdown again this year she said she wanted to do something to raise money and help people with the situation we’re in with not being able to see loved ones.

“She came up with the idea of treat boxes so I set up a Facebook page and it grew from there.

“It really took off and Evie was busy every evening and spent a lot of her weekends making them too. She did everything herself and really committed a lot of time to it.

“We’re so immensely proud of her that she wants to raise money for the wards and give up her time to do so.”

Evie's school has also been supportive of her venture and are, too, proud of their student's efforts.