Melanie Quin is calling on the community's help to keep her charity going with the purpose of celebrating life with ‘A Day of Magic.'
As a charity, A Day of Magic was created by Melanie to gift those with a terminal illness one day of amazing experiences, each bespoke to reflect what is magic to them and to enjoy with their loved ones creating those precious everlasting memories before they say goodbye.
Melanie started the charity unexpectedly three years ago after hearing of a local woman her age who found out she had four weeks to live. 'I just couldn't make sense of that,” says Melanie. 'If that was me right now, I wouldn't have enough money, I would have excuses and wouldn't have managed to do the things I've always wanted to do, I'd be gutted and I would have my daughter to leave behind with just final memories of grief of loss.”
Making magic
To date, Melanie has created five days of magic filled with thrill-seeking experiences to recreating a wedding. 'What A Day of Magic does is it literally just stops time for a moment so a grieving family do not have to think about a thing, money, nothing, and to just have that special time to create those memories together and say goodbye,” says Melanie.
She has recently made some tough decisions to support A Day of Magic. 'A few months ago I cut down my 40 hours at my full time job down to 10 hours so I can have 15- 30 hours a week spare to get this charity developed from a little hobby, love project to a growing thing where I can actually handle the demand when the tap turns on and the magic wheels don't fall off.”
Melanie has put thousands into her charity. 'So $50,000 of my own savings for me and my daughter is now in the charity because I believe in it; four families wanted to celebrate life before they say goodbye, so I helped them to make it possible, and the charity needed that financial assistance to be where it is now.
'My issue now though is that I'm needing the community's support. I need additional funding to get A Day of Magic ready for everyone to benefit from.”
Fundraising raffle
Her solution is a raffle fundraiser, where anyone in the community can win ‘celebrating life' style prizes and experiences while supporting a good cause. For a chance of $4000 worth of prizes, including a helicopter flight, tandem skydive, a celebration cake and more, raffle fundraiser tickets cost $5. 'A lot of people have $5. That's a coffee so if you buy a coffee a day, this is just one less coffee a week,” says Melanie.
There is the option to pay $5 weekly and Melanie only needs a minimum of 150 people to subscribe to this to ensure the charity doors can remain open while she continues to fundraise.
'If I can sell 5000 tickets for this one raffle …and the community gets behind me then I can create this into a weekly or fortnightly raffle that just creates a constant funding for the charity without the need for grants and corporate sponsorship,” says Melanie. Without this community funding, Melanie will have to close her charity. 'I've done this much work to this point and I just need that little bit of a push to get me to that finishing line so I can help as many people as possible to celebrate life.”
Melanie is also working towards a national celebrate life day to be held on Saturday, March 25, 2023, which will also be the official relaunch of her charity. 'Everyone no matter what should be able to have one day to go: ‘I'm awesome, I deserve a day to myself to celebrate my life and everything I've achieved and with everyone I care about'.”
The raffle fundraiser's closing date is Friday, December 16. Tickets can be purchased at: https://www.adayofmagic.org.nz/rafflefundraiser