Chamber Member Jessica Parish, from St Helens used her latest book tour as a way of raising money for local charities in the build up to Christmas. Jessica’s book, “A Christmas Furry Tail” is a delightfully illustrated Christmas story based on her own adorable pet pug, Rocky aka Pugalugs.
Jessica, along with Pugalugs, and his pug brother, Dug who also features in the book visited 25 venues across the North West and beyond throughout November and December signing books and meeting their young fans. They visited retailers such as Debenhams, Bents Home and Garden Centre in Warrington, Tesco Extra, and shopping centres such as St Helens Church Square, The Trafford Centre and Wigan’s Grand Arcade.
Their book tour took them across Manchester, Chester, Liverpool and even as far as Cardiff for a special Christmas-themed “Pugfest” event. Jessica gave a donation from every book sold to each store’s chosen charity, and collected donations from passing customers.
The charities included Action Epilepsy, Georgie’s Gift, a meningitis awareness charity based in Manchester, Wigan & Leigh Hospice, the British Heart Foundation and Diabetes UK.
“A Christmas Furry-Tail” is the fifth book in the popular series titled “The Adventures of Pugalugs”. Jessica, 29 from St Helens left her job as an Account Manager in 2014 to follow her dream of becoming a published author. Her first book, “Pugalugs: The Beginning” was launched in St. Helens in 2015 and took the town’s children by storm! Jessica, along with Pugalugs and Dug have visited over 50 local primary schools sharing their stories and inspiring the children to read, and write their own stories too!
Jessica said, “We all had a great time on our Christmas book tour, the pugs love the attention they get from all the children, and it’s a great way to inspire young children into reading if they can actually meet the real live characters from the books. We are so grateful to all of the shops and shopping centres who have invited us into their space, and to our customers who have helped us to raise this money for well deserving causes. My aim was to raise £1000 for the local and national charities and I am delighted to say that we surpassed that target comfortably.”
Jessica and the pugs continue their work across local schools and are planning their next adventure in book form too!
