The Turning 50 Challenge is now well underway and we caught up with Lisa and MaryCarmel from Ellisons Solicitors about how their fundraising is going.

Ellisons Solicitors is one of the oldest, most established and fastest growing firms in the East of England having been founded over 250 years ago. Ellisons' exceptional longevity can be attributed to its tradition of proactive, friendly and highly-personalised client service. The firm's guiding principle is to become a trusted advisor and very much rooted in a belief that everything should be led by a client's needs, and motivated by ensuring a client's absolute satisfaction.

The team at Ellisons have a whole host of different fundraisers planned and some have even happened already! Kicking off their efforts to turn £50 into as much money as possible, Lisa has recruited her family to make a selection of treats for football teams and... dogs? 

A truly imaginative start from the Family Department at Ellisons where they've made their own dog treats to raise money for the challenge and also a load of cakes and biscuits. This alone has raised them well over £150 and given them a strong start to becoming the Turning 50 Challenge Champions. 

The creativity doesn't end there, however. Ellisons are going all out and getting their branches all across East Anglia involved. The Bury branch is running bake sales, the Ipswich branch running a balloon raffle, Tendring are doing a tombola with prizes including massages and more.

Throughout the company there's a brilliant rendition of 'date night with a book'. The idea is to sell books wrapped up with a tea bag and biscuit for adults and kids. The books are being donated by staff and it's becoming a real team effort. They will also be accompanied by bookmarks made by Ellisons with information about Autism Anglia on the back!

Pulling in support from anywhere they can, they're running a silent auction for a signed shirt from a Formula 1 driver and even running 'Tipple Tuesday' on the last day of the challenge to really push them over the line.

Speaking to Lisa and MaryCarmel, they expressed that the Family Department sees clients who are autistic and many family members of such who are also autistic. Taking it upon themselves to make using their services more accessible, Ellisons are altering a page on their website to become more autism friendly. With many of the people they help being autistic, we are pleased to have the support of Ellisons with this challenge and we can't wait to see how they do.

With this monumental effort being made to raise money for Autism Anglia, we cannot thank them enough.