I recently took over the running of 1st Sithney Green brownies, where I met the most amazing girl, Maisie. Maisie is nine years old and has been a brownie for two years. Maisie lives with her mum, dad and two younger brothers.
Maisie’s younger brothers suffer from a rare illness which means that even if they catch a cold they could end up in hospital. Like everyone else the whole family went into isolation in March 2020 when Coronavirus first hit the UK.
Unlike everyone else, Maisie and her family are still in isolation, coming up to nearly two years with no school, brownies, going out to the shops and socialising.
Maisie herself doesn’t suffer from the illness that affects her brothers, however she remains isolating to keep them safe. She is home schooled and has access to a robot that allows her to interact with her classmates via an app. When her friends visit her, they must do so from a distance, from Maisie’s front gate. The same applies to Brownies.
We all meet Maisie from her front gate and spend about half hour with her and giving her equipment she needs for that nights Brownies, and just generally chatting with her.
Everything that she is given from us spends two weeks in isolation to make sure it’s all safe to be in her house. Despite all this, Maisie remains positive and is looking forward to when she can eventually return to face-to-face meetings.
At the end of last year, a charity called Over the Wall sent Maisie and her brothers camp packs, and they were able to interact via zoom with other families who are in similar situations, the packs included a t shirt, face paints and lots of crafting goodies.
Maisie was asked to help with the fundraising, she spent hours on zoom answering questions with the charity’s copywriter explaining what life has been like the past two years. She also helped write and memorise a script in which she was used as a voiceover in a video about her family, this was broadcast on Radio 4. She also shared lots of photos of her family to be used in the video.
From all of this, Maisie and her family managed to raise almost £14,000 in donations, which is a staggering amount.
One of the patrons of the charity heard about Maisie and was so impressed by her that he double matched everything she raised, so that her final amount was tripled! The charity finished the campaign having raised £41,127, with Maisie having contributed a significant amount to this. This amazing total means that this year more families like Maisie’s can take part in these fun events and not feel so alone.
Maisie is currently working towards gaining her Brownie Gold Award, and she constantly amazes me with her work ethic. She currently only needs 3 interest badges to have completed all of them and is currently working on her skills builders. She’s determined to complete the whole badge book, and I have complete faith that she’ll manage this.
Maisie is truly an inspiration to us all and shows all the qualities of being a great brownie, and I’m proud that she’s a part of my unit.
Nicki Ormerod
1st Sithney Green Brownies