Meet Lovelies.help, a group of women united by their love of music superstar George Michael who have raised over £279,000 for charity over the last nine years! This includes a whopping £46,500 for Terrence Higgins Trust, of which £25,000 was to support THT Direct - and they’re not looking to stop any time soon.
We recently spoke to Gill from Lovelies.help, who explained about how they got started and how you can get involved.
Who are Lovelies.help?
The Lovelies are George’s fans. It’s a name he used himself for them on Twitter, now X.
Lovelies.help was founded by Danish ladies Tina Hindsbo and Katja Kafling in April 2017. As George fans of many years standing, they were trying to think of a way to honour and remember George after his passing. They considered writing a book, but there were and are already a lot of books out there.
Tina came up with the idea of fans donating spare or duplicate items of memorabilia which Lovelies.help would auction for other fans to add to their collections, with the entire winning bid going directly to a charity which had been supported by George in his lifetime. Gill came on board soon after and Vicki sometime after that.
We use the JustGiving platform for all the donations so that the winning bid goes direct to the charity. Lovelies.help never touches any of the money.
We run two or three new auctions every single day of the year except Christmas day where the page is inactive as a mark of respect. If you’d like to take a look, you’ll find us on Facebook, which is where our auctions take place, but we also share everything on Twitter and Instagram.
By 8 May 2017 we had raised our first £1,000 and it just didn’t stop! In November 2019 the total reached an incredible £100,000 and we’re currently at £279,000 split across 10 charities.
Over nine years after George sadly passed away, people are still bidding and donating, which is brilliant!
Why do you support Terrence Higgins Trust?
Personally, I already knew about George’s support for Terrence Higgins Trust as it was quite well-known in the UK. He was always a great supporter of AIDS-related charities. He supported them in various ways, but most notably through The Concert of Hope held at Wembley Arena on Wednesday 1 December 1993. He was also often seen to be wearing the red ribbon associated with Terrence Higgins Trust.
Our principal requirement for having a charity on our list is that George supported them in his lifetime.
A Plaque, A Memory, A Legacy
In November, Chris Organ - George's lawyer and joint Trustee of the George Michael Fund with George's sister Yioda, visited the Terrence Higgins Trust offices in London to unveil a deeply moving memorial plaque honouring George’s life and legacy.
Gill said, “Supporters of Lovelies.help came together with incredible love and generosity, raising £25,000 in George Michael’s memory to help fund the THT Direct helpline telephone service. Visiting the offices with Lovelies.help team members Katja and Karen, alongside supporter Sam and George’s long-time friend and lawyer Chris, was profoundly special. Every item auctioned had been treasured by a supporter, and every winning bid was given in the same spirit of kindness that George showed throughout his life. To see that collective devotion transform into meaningful support for Terrence Higgins Trust was truly beautiful.”
Thank you!
We'd like to say a big thank you to Lovelies.help for all of their incredible support. You've made such a tremendous difference to the work we do, and your hard work and dedication means everything to us.
This updated article was originally published 15 February 2021.
