A lot of us are feeling a little helpless right now. We’re stuck in our homes, and if we’re not front-line workers, we’re trying to figure out how to we can help our communities and the world at large during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thankfully, some celebrities are using their influence to raise money for important causes. Among them is actor and directorAndy Serkis, who famously played Gollum inThe Lord of the RingsandThe Hobbitmovies. To raise money for charity, Andy Serkis is doing a live-reading today ofJ.R.R. Tolkien’sThe Hobbit.
Througha GoFundMe page, Serkis is raising money for Best Beginnings and NHS Charities Together. Here’s what the GoFundMe page has to say about them:
Best Beginnings is working tirelessly during the #COVID19 pandemic to support babies, toddlers, pregnant families and new parents and reduce inequalities. The charity empowers and informs parents of all backgrounds through their NHS accredited pregnancy and parenting app, Baby Buddy App. Baby Buddy provides up-to-date and clinically assured information and more than 300 video clips to support families during this difficult time when they are separated from their wider support networks. From within Baby Buddy, parents and expectant parents in emotional pain or crisis can click through to the clinically supervised 24/7 “Baby Buddy Crisis Messenger”.
Funding will help Best Beginnings support the mental and physical health of tens of thousands of pregnant families and new parents of all backgrounds across the UK. By supporting Best Beginnings to support parents, we can all play our part in helping protect babies and toddlers at this time of national emergency and protect their futures.
NHS Charities Together is the umbrella organisation that brings together all the official charities of the NHS. In response to the COVID-19 emergency, it launched an urgent appeal to support NHS staff, volunteers and patients and hanks to fantastic support from the public, the appeal has raised over £100 million in just 6 weeks.
£20 million has already been given out in grants to NHS charities across the UK and is being used to meet the immediate and urgent needs of staff, volunteers and patients – providing somewhere comfortable so they can take a break, nutritious food and drink, use of electronic-tablets so patients, staff and volunteers can stay in contact with loved ones, counselling support to protect mental health and help staff and volunteers process what they are dealing with. The funding is also going towards helping vital partnerships outside hospitals, such as hospices, community healthcare and social care, making sure patients who leave hospital have access to the care they need to recover. In the longer term it will also fund programmes to help staff and families recover fully once the crisis has abated, reducing the long-term impact on them and the people they care about.
This is a great use of Serkis' talent, and if you can spare the money to donate, please do so during this 12-hour reading marathon. Watch Serkis' live-read below:
