The following bio is taken from Ted's Just Giving page:
"Hi I’m Ted and as many of you know I am blind. You may or may not know that I’m a big fan of the Living Paintings charity - they provide wonderful free Touch to See books for people like me with a visual impairment. They are amazing and they have helped me make sense of the world! Having seen Captain Tom raise so much money I wondered if I could do something to raise some money for my favourite charity Living Paintings while I am in lockdown - so they can keep the books coming."
Here's a video of Ted with JayJay to tell you more about his challenge:
Camilla Oldland, the Chief Executive of Living Paintings sent us the following message:
"I just wanted to thank you very much indeed on behalf of Ted and our charity, Living Paintings, for your very generous donation of £2,000 to his marathon challenge. Ted and family are so thrilled – you have added such a great deal to their excitement on his last day. And what a hero he is! Thinking up this challenge and running every single day for 26 days not faltering once…. In fact, he’s already thinking of another challenge! Mind you I’m not sure what his mum and dad think of that as each day one of them had to run with him to guide him – I don’t think they were expecting to get so much exercise!"
Also, here’s another video to a funny challenge film from England cricketer Jos Buttler and friends raising money for Ted’s team:
Camilla also went on to say:
"I hope these all make you smile as much as your generosity has made us smile. In such hard times its lovely to have good news and feel the kindness of people. Our charity is suffering enormously financially but still sending out our unique Touch to See books to thousands of blind kids like Ted all over the country and your donation will make a real difference to us."
About Living Paintings
In 2015, Living Paintings reached the milestone figure of 10,000 library members. They also celebrated 25 years of publishing and lending their unique Touch to See books to blind and partially sighted people across the UK.
Living Paintings was formed in 1989 by Alison Oldland MBE, formerly a lecturer in Art History. Alison would say that the story of how Living Paintings came about was a ‘typical Oldland family story’ i.e. a tale of the unexpected.
Alison wanted another family dog but not one that was going to chew her furniture. As a result the family ‘adopted’ a rejected trainee guide dog, Emma, and from the day she arrived in the house it was clear why this dopey, soppy, blonde had not made the grade!
Living Paintings is a unique publishing house and library. They are the only charity in the UK who design, create and publish tactile and audio books for blind and partially sighted people. They call them Touch to See book
They publish titles suitable for anyone from pre-school to adult, and their wide and growing range is designed to provide education and life-long learning, enhance lifestyle and support leisure interests.
About our Do Some Good campaign
Our popular charity initiative has raised over £79,000 to date for great causes across the UK and around the world.
So far in 2020 we’ve donated:
- £10,000 to Colonel Tom's Walk for the NHS
- £2,500 each to FareShare and Foodcycle (£5,000 in total)
- £3,000 to St Wilfrid's Hospice
- £2,000 to 11 year old Ted who's running a marathon for Living Paintings.
All because of the photographs our customers have sent us!
However, we want to donate even more to the NHS and our chosen charity partners, but to do so, we need your help.
There's a few simple ways you can get involved:
- Simply send us a few photos of your Lazy Susan furniture in your garden to [email protected].
- Share your photos and tag us at @LazySusanFurniture on Facebook or @lazysusanfurniture on Instagram.
- Or post a review on Trustpilot.
We’ll donate £10 for every set of photographs you send or review you post, however, we'll increase that to £20 for photos showing the table dressed to impress.
You can make your own donation to Ted here.