A Final Farewell to the Giraffes

The wonderful art trail ‘Croydon Stands Tall’ that lit up the streets of Croydon came to its end. With 26 sponsors, the giraffe trail reached 96.4 million people across the UK and internationally including 45 different pieces of coverage across different media platforms. 35,000 trail maps were given out, there were 84,000 scans of the app, 2,000 photos uploaded on to the app gallery and 60,000 miles were walked by people on the trail, our Skylight volunteers being part of that number!

Our Crisis Skylight windows have been filled with dozens of miniature giraffes, all decorated by our members, colleagues and local community groups forming a ‘mini tribe’ of giraffes and there were also several events running throughout the trail, all raising money for Crisis, including a giraffe painting competition for children (and adults!) in the Centrale shopping centre.

The weekend of the 11th and 12th of November saw the trail coming to its end with a special farewell event, in which members of the public could come along and see all the giraffes under one roof.

The farewell event was followed by a spectacular auction in which all 30 of the 8' tall giraffes and 2 of the smaller giraffes were auctioned off to the highest bidder. The night was full of surprises and fun, with Bargain Hunt's Charles Hanson fulfilling the role of auctioneer. One of our member volunteers also gave a truly inspiring speech about their experiences of homelessness and how Crisis has supported them on their journey out of it. The top selling giraffe was the beautiful floral and gold (and glow in the dark!) giraffe called Fleur, selling for £7,500! We are delighted to share that the auction event raised an amazing £58,000 for the Croydon Skylight which brought the total raised over the last few months to a fantastic £58,875.59.

The giraffes were loved by all, but we must give a special mention to Aasiri Wickremage, the artist for ‘Tropics in Colour ‘ – Acaia Georgie, who stood outside our building looking so vibrant and uplifting.

All the money raised will go directly in to helping people out of homelessness in Croydon. We are so grateful to everyone involved in this mammoth project from our wonderful volunteers and members, colleagues across Crisis, local partners, local businesses and the local community for everything they have done to get to this point.