Emma Boyd

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Why did you decide to fundraise for your chosen cause?

All4Paws is a student-run, veterinarian-supervised clinic that offers free veterinary care to the pets of people who are homeless or vulnerably housed in and around Edinburgh. Many larger animal charities overlook All4Paws and I wanted to help the team continue to provide their vital service to our local community.

All4Paws volunteers give up their valuable free time on a regular basis and in doing so give so much to the community, whilst helping so many beloved pets which would otherwise go without. As well as offering excellent pet care and advice, All4Paws also provides excellent hands on training to our students, which will be of huge benefit to them when they qualify as vets.

I believe All4Paws deserve every penny raised through fundraising activities such as this.

How did you raise money?

Personal protective equipment (PPE) is vital in veterinary care. The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies needs a lot of PPE and it makes sense, financially, to buy in bulk. PPE changes over time, as does the level of PPE required for use at any one time at the Dick Vet.

With space being sorely needed, I had the opportunity to go through our older PPE to salvage useful equipment that was no longer needed at Easter Bush. I thought that this was a fantastic opportunity to collect up as much PPE as possible, sort it, and sell it in aid of All4Paws.

Along with colleagues Heather and Sharon, we set ourselves the challenge of clearing the campus of surplus PPE. It took us a good few days, but we were thrilled with our haul of over 100 bags of useable PPE!

We sorted all the items and were delighted to be able to put all of this safety equipment to good use. We donated around 100 lab coats to eight external local charities, over 40 used riding helmets to a local riding school, and 20 brand new riding helmets and used boots to our Exmoor Pony Trekking Club here at the school.

We held a two day pop-up shop for the rest of the items. We didn’t price items, we just asked the students to pay what they thought the items were worth. This was great, as it meant that all our students could afford to buy whatever they needed. The pop-up shop was a roaring success, far bigger than we could have imagined and the amount raised was utterly unbelievable.

This was a wonderful experience, so much so that I would love to make this an annual fundraising event for the school, and I’m sure with Sharon and Heather's help I can make this achievable

Fundraising wisdom

Everyone loves a bargain, whatever you are thinking of selling, now is the time to do so!

Useful Links

The Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies

All4Paws

Easyfundraising (external link)