A HAMBLEDON teenager who has devoted the decade to charity is close to reaching an incredible fundraising milestone.
There was a wonderful buzz in The Chairmakers when Jessica Ridge handed £14,000 to The Honeypot Children’s Charity.
The 18-year-old raised the sum for the charity, which runs a New Forest holiday home for child carers, over 12 months through events like a ’Jesstival’, sponsored Muddy Runner event and ’Tinsel tipple’ raffle.
The charity, like several others before, was hand-picked by Jessica to benefit with Reading organisation, Daisy’s Dream, being the next to receive a handout from the young charity worker.
Jessica wants to raise £14,000 for the bereavement support charity over the next year with several events already planned.
But even if she raised only a third of that total, it means Jessica would have collected £100,000 in under a decade - an incredible feat considering she has only just finished college.
The inspirational teenager has raised more than £95,000 for charity since holding a jamboree in aid of Cancer Research in her Hambledon garden in 2009.
"When she picks a charity each year, Jessica researches online beforehand," said her proud mother Lara.
"She wants to help children so her search engine is aimed towards children who are struggling in some way. She will narrow it down to one, two or three charities she likes the look of and then will ring them and find out which one she likes best.
"With Daisy’s Dream she was on the phone for ages and when she came off the phone she said, ’yep, that’s the one’."
Kate Browning, regional fundraising manager for the Honeypot Children’s Charity, thanked Jessica and her ’Touch of Magic’ charitable organisation for the donation as she received the cheque last week.
For more details look for A Touch of Magic! on Facebook.