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An eight-year-old girl is encouraging kids all over the world to make birthday cards for a 99-year-old army veteran who has raised millions for the NHS.
Captain Tom Moore, from Keighley, Yorkshire, took on the challenge of walking 100 lengths of his back garden before he turns 100 at the end of April. In return, he asked for donations towards the NHS.
His initial goal was to raise £1,000 – but so far he’s raised more than £14m for the health service.
“We want to give back to this legend Tom who has raised over one million pound for our NHS,” wrote eight-year-old Reegan Davies on Twitter.
“We are kindly asking all kids across the UK to make him a virtual birthday card to say thanks.” She used the hashtag #makeacardfortom.
Reegan’s mum, Lisa, said the family came across Tom and his story last week when he shared a campaign that Reegan had been heavily involved in at school. “Tom and his family saw our video and messaged on Reegan’s Twitter account to say how much he loved it,” she told HuffPost UK.
“When Reegan saw what Tom was doing, how old he was and that his birthday was soon, she thought he was amazing and came up with the idea [of the birthday cards],” she said.
Reegan firstly asked all her local friends to make a card. When Lisa started tweeting them, she received lots of retweets and said, “it went viral from there”.
Lisa said she has been in touch with Tom’s family. They’re going to make a video to include all Tom’s birthday cards, to share on the day of his birthday.
She and Reegan have also asked the nation to join in an event on his birthday on 30 April where the eight-year-old will conduct a live sing-a-long of happy birthday at 8.05pm after the clap for NHS.
Want to send a card to Tom?
Reegan explained the simple three steps children need to do to share a card to Tom. “He’s turning 100 and he’s raising over one million for the NHS, so we thought, why don’t we make a card for Tom?” she said.
1. Make a birthday card at home for Tom with pen and paper
2. Share on your choice of social media – Facebook, Twitter or Instagram
3. Use the hashtag #makeacardfortom so all the birthday cards can be collated together.
There are already lots of cards on the hashtag, made by kids all over the world.