#TheLBDI - what a week!

As I type this on a sunny Friday afternoon in London, wearing my little black dress and reflecting on this past week, and the months of planning before it, I can hardly believe what a busy, full week it has been.  I've written about the Little Black Dress Initiative before, and it's efforts to support the work of the Junior League of London (JLL) and its work to target the effects of poverty here in the city.

Through fundraising, volunteering and advocating, the JLL tries to make a difference in our community, through giving upwards of twenty-thousand volunteer hours per year, and using the funds we raise to support the many projects we partner with (for a list of these please click here).  The money we have raised this week goes towards this.  One of my favourite things about the campaign is how little it costs us to run - meaning that the money goes where it's most needed.

If you'd like to sponsor us our Virgin Money Giving page is here.  If you'd like to sponsor me (and a million thank yous to everyone who has done so so far), my personal page is here.  If money's tight or you're all sponsored out this month, but you'd still like to give us a little support on social, please see the hashtag (#theLBDI) and give us a like, a retweet, or a hello!  To learn more about the work of the Junior League of London, and to find details on joining us, please visit our website.

Now I'd like to share a few glimpses from our hectic, busy week.  I'm so proud to be part of Team LBDI and can't wait to see what our total might be and how we can use it to help with our mission.  As well as being featured on many media, including a piece in the Evening Standard (alas, not archived online) and another in the Telegraph, our participants have been very busy on social media; throughout this post I've shared just a few of the things we've been posting.  We also hosted a Poverty Awareness Symposium on Wednesday night, with over 70 attendees and speakers from two of our community partners, Smart Works and Suited &Booted - I'm very excited for the clothing drive we're doing for these charities, and the invaluable work they do, next month.

Thank you again for all your support on this!  Regular blog programming will return in full very soon.  Have a great weekend, and if you can donate/share our page, thank you in advance for doing so!

Note: All pictures here were tagged with the  #theLBDI hashtag, and I've used them as this is part of our promotional materials.  Naturally, they remain the property of the photographers involved - in this case, a number of the participants in this year's LBDI campaign.