{"id":58612,"date":"2025-08-10T07:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T07:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/58612\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T07:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T07:03:10","slug":"sunderland-volunteer-stars-in-new-childrens-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/58612\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunderland volunteer stars in new children&#8217;s book"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pamela Bilalova<\/p>\n<p>BBC News, North East and Cumbria<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1753965012_369_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-d1200759-0 dkIvM hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/bb159540-7551-11f0-9e3c-030665063cc9.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"eager\" alt=\"Supplied Jack Dillon smiles at the camera next to an illustration of himself from the book. He has short ginger hair and a beard, blue eyes and is wearing glasses, a white shirt and a blue apron. \" class=\"sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj\"\/>Supplied<\/p>\n<p>Jack Dillon volunteers at several organisations in Sunderland<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">A volunteer says he is &#8220;so proud&#8221; to be the star of a community organisation&#8217;s book encouraging children to grow at their own pace.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Jack Dillon, from Sunderland, who has Down&#8217;s syndrome, is the inspiration behind one of the characters in The Story of the Lazy Loaf.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">The 27-year-old, who has been volunteering at The Bunker and Sunshine Co-operative in the city, said he was thrilled to be included in the story.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Author and founder of Raising Dough CIC Jo Gordon said Mr Dillon was a &#8220;legend&#8221; and a &#8220;larger than life character&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">&#8220;He just brings joy. He&#8217;s quite an emotional chap as well,&#8221; Ms Gordon said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">The community organisation <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cdryzee568mo\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 bGFWdi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">supports people with disabilities into work<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Mr Dillon, who has been helping there for the past two years, said it meant a lot to be featured as the baker in the story.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">&#8220;I love volunteering,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">&#8220;It helps me a lot to see different people and help people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1753965012_369_grey-placeholder.png\" class=\"sc-d1200759-0 dkIvM hide-when-no-script\" aria-label=\"image unavailable\"\/><img decoding=\"async\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/63220b40-7559-11f0-885d-9549c5db00a7.jpg.webp.webp\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Sunderland BID Jo Gordon and Hannah Graham holding a copy of The Story of the Lazy Loaf and smiling as they kneel in front of a cream-coloured van. The book cover is blue and shows bread loaves surrounded by Sunderland landmarks, such as Roker Pier and Fulwell Windmill. Jo has light pink-coloured hair, wears a green beanie, sunglasses, brown trousers and jacket. Hannah has long straight strawberry blonde hair and is wearing a blue cardigan.\" class=\"sc-d1200759-0 dvfjxj\"\/>Sunderland BID<\/p>\n<p>Jo Gordon, left, and book illustrator Hannah Graham, will be holding a charity storytelling event at Fulwell Windmill<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Proceeds from the book will go towards local causes or be reinvested into the community.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">A storytelling event will also take place at Fulwell Windmill on Thursday and all ticket sales will be donated to Grace House, which provides support to disabled children and their families.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 hxuGS\">Ms Gordon said she also hoped the book could be used by schools in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pamela Bilalova BBC News, North East and Cumbria Supplied Jack Dillon volunteers at several organisations in Sunderland A&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[353,49,48,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-58612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}