Here at LampShopOnline, we want to make a difference, which is why we have chosen to support Guide Dogs in Leeds as our chosen charity. We recently had the pleasure of meeting Steven with his guide dog Guss, which really helped us understand and appreciate the difference a guide dog can make to a person’s life. Steven has lived with deteriorating sight loss most of his life and struggled to come to terms with it as it worsened. He told us how his mental health suffered and how he cut himself off from the outside world. Being matched with Guss three years ago was life-changing for Steven – he went from being withdrawn and isolated, to embracing life with new confidence and independence. He even jumped on a train to Liverpool to pick up some limited edition trainers – something he’d never have been able to do before. We want to raise money so that more blind and partially-sighted people can have a dog like Guss!  Meeting Steven helped us understand how much work goes into training and supporting guide dogs (and their owners!) and how much more the charity does in addition to providing assistance dogs. We now know that almost two million people in the UK are living with sight loss and that it has a significant impact on their daily lives. Of those, around 180,000 rarely leave their homes alone and lead lonely, isolated lives. 

Our fundraising started with the Yorkshire 3 Peaks – a gruelling 25 mile walk up three mountains on the 13th of October. Due to the weather, we only managed to complete 1.

On the 2nd of November, we organised a Bonfire party for staff, family and friends, raising £900!

Now, to try and get us a little bit closer to our £5,000 target we will be running, walking or even crawling Cookridge's Community 10K Run around Golden Acre Park on the 19th of May 2019.

It'll be a struggle for some and a walk in the park for others!

Thank you so much for your donations this far... We're nearly there!