Taylor-Made Dreams is a registered children’s charity based in Crowborough, East Sussex that grants dreams to children with life limiting illnesses and provides essential, ongoing support services to the child and their immediate family.
TMD was founded in 2014 by CEO Suzi Mitchell after the loss of her own son Taylor Mitchell in 2012. After Taylor was diagnosed with his own life limiting illness in 2008, he and Suzi shared some amazing adventures and experiences together after being inspired to create his own “bucket list of wishes” after watching the bittersweet comedy movie “The Bucket List” with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, depicting two cancer sufferers who help each other create and fulfil their own list of dreams. He met David Beckham, swam with dolphins in America, and even had his own private Red Arrows fly pass.
Suzi was so inspired and motivated by the impact of fulfilling Taylor’s list, that she knew, even before Taylor had passed, that she wanted to offer families in similar circumstances the opportunity to experience what she had, and help other children fulfil their own dreams when time is sadly cut far too short, which would create these incredibly special experiences and memories for the child and their family to treasure.
There are generally four categories of dream making.
• To meet their favourite celebrity
• To have a family holiday
• To experience a particular music or sporting event
• To have something they’ve never had-an Xbox, a PlayStation, their bedroom decorated a certain way
In terms of support services, we are proud to offer the following to the families we serve…
• Holistic therapy
• Counselling sessions
• Medical travel grants
• Sibling support service (taking the siblings out once a month for a pure day of fun)
• Technology loan library
• Family photoshoots and portraits
• Provide medical sheepskin fleeces to ease bed sores and help regulate the child’s temperature
• Memory pendants given to family when a child passes
Having an impact on our local community is of paramount importance to us, and as we are a Regional charity and not a National charity, we only support families located in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Essex.
In our almost ten years of service, we are very proud to have delivered thousands of these services to the families, and granted over 2000 bucket list wishes.
TMD has joined the chamber to meet local businesses that may like to learn more about the charity and see how as a business, they could choose to support us, enabling us to provide even more services to families in our nearby communities. We have some fantastic ways businesses can achieve their Corporate Social Responsibility targets, or if a business is or is looking to achieve B Corp status, we also have some impactful support packages that can help them achieve this too.