Our supporters really are the bee knees. This Fundraising Friday we celebrate the amazing heart warrior Minnie and her amazing friends and family as well as Kady, who tells us just how easy it is to set up a Facebook Fundraiser for CHSF…

Minnie Mac’s Fundraiser

Minnie’s parents, Alex and Tara said:

Since being in hospital after Minnie’s birth for a few weeks and all the care we received from the staff at Leeds, we felt it only right to give a little back.

We are so thankful for everything, we reached out to our friends and families to see if they wanted to help.

Total funds were raised through such a mixed bag of events. Sponsored slim, a bake sale, donation from a union, sale of knitted items, church donation from a lovely family and we also held a fundraising night at a local pub, The Healdfield.

We had a raffle and an auction on the night for everyone who was in the pub, and as thanks we had a little sing song. Myself and a couple of my friends entertained the masses for a few hours.

We are so thankful to everyone involved at Children’s Heart Surgery Fund.

It is a charity that will forever touch our hearts for what you have done to help our daughter and we hope this money goes a little way towards helping you!

Thank you so much to all of Minnie Mac’s friends and family for this incredible fundraising on behalf of CHSF.

Kady Wood: Facebook Fundraiser

I can’t thank Children’s Heart Surgery Fund enough for everything they have done for our little girl Florence who is now 18 months old. Florence was born a healthy baby and then at 2 weeks old we were told she needed heart surgery – like most people, we didn’t have a clue about this charity!

Everything that has been done, even down to the Katie Bears that you get after surgery – all absolutely amazing!! I wanted to give a little back and that’s why I put the birthday fundraiser on Facebook and was truly shocked at the donations from family and friends! It’s a great way of raising a bit of money for such an incredible charity, will definitely do it again next year! Once again thank you for everything ❤️

Fancy fundraising for CHSF? Fill in our Fundraiser Registration Form or get in touch with Community Fundraiser Lisa Williams to discuss your ideas on lisa.williams@chsf.org.uk | 0113 831 4810

This #FundraisingFriday we are celebrating the incredible fundraising from #TeamELSIE! ❤️

Rachel, Elsie’s Mum, said:

I chose to support CHSF because my daughter Elsie was born with congenital heart disease and had open heart surgery in Feb 2019 age 6 months old. Without CHSF my daughter wouldn’t be here – previous donations have provided life saving equipment to keep my daughter alive and I will carry on raising money so CHSF can do the same for other children.

CHSF provided accommodation so I was minutes away from Elsie when she was in intensive care. When Elsie was well enough to be back on Ward L51 she was given Katie bear, a medal and certificate for her bravery and we also had a visit from some Leeds United players on Valentines Day! Thank you so much CHSF for making our time in hospital bearable.

I raised money by opening a JustGiving page with a little story about Elsie’s condition and what she had been through. I, along with family and friends, also took part in KAPOW! A huge thank you to The Brick pub in Wortley for taking part! They also held a fun day to raise more funds for #TeamELSIE. Lastly I raised money for the charity by asking for donations instead of cards and presents on my birthday. CHSF have made such a difference to our lives!

Thank you #TeamELSIE! We can only do what we do because of people just like you! #BecauseofYou

Fancy fundraising for CHSF? Fill in our Fundraiser Registration Form or get in touch with Community Fundraiser Lisa Williams to discuss your ideas on lisa.williams@chsf.org.uk | 0113 831 4810

It’s Friday at last and what better way to kick-start the weekend than to celebrate more of our super supporters. There are so many ways you can raise money for CHSF and this week’s #FundraisingFriday champions show you how it’s done…

Job Centre, Leeds Eastgate

The team from Leeds Eastgate Job Centre paid a visit to CHSF HQ to pay in their fundraising. The team said:

We chose to fundraise for Children’s Heart Surgery Fund as one of our colleague’s, Naomi Wilkinson, has been attending the Leeds Congenital Heart Unit with her daughter since she was born.

Olivia was born with half a heart and without the unit her life would be very different. She has just started high school which is amazing! Naomi and her family have been through such a lot and we wanted to support a charity that is now close to all our hearts.

Hopefully the money we have raised through taking part in Kapow! and our ‘Made with Love’ event will help other families in the future.

Fantastic effort guys! What a wonderful thing to do for a colleague – you should all be very proud! Thank you!

Friends & Family of Alfie Brownridge

Alfie’s Mum Samantha said:

We supported CHSF by asking for donations instead of presents at Alfie’s christening. We chose Children’s Heart Surgery Fund as Alfie is 7 months old has had two open heart surgeries at the LGI.

Thanks to your amazing charity we have stayed in accommodation you provide, used the extensive equipment used on the ward and at home which has been funded by CHSF – and all the support you give families going through a difficult part of their rollercoaster journey. Also not forgetting Alfie’s Katie Bears, sat pride of place!

We thank you, CHSF, so much and our generous friends and family!

A huge thank you to all Alfie’s family and friends. Your donations will go straight back to helping children just like Alfie treated at the Leeds Congenital Heart Unit.

Lee Aslin

Lee did the skydive this September for CHSF. Lee came along to Oxford Place this week with his son Reggie to see the CHSF team and pay in his incredible fundraising!

Lee said:

I did the skydive to say thank you to Children’s Heart Surgery Fund because without them the chances are my little boy, Reggie, wouldn’t be here today.

Thank you so much Lee! We are so so grateful you chose to raise funds for CHSF. Everything we do is because of people exactly like yourself! #BecauseofYou

Fancy fundraising for CHSF? Fill in our Fundraiser Registration Form or get in touch with Community Fundraiser Lisa Williams to discuss your ideas on lisa.williams@chsf.org.uk | 0113 831 4810

We spoke to Dr John Thomson, Lead Clinician for Congenital Cardiology to find out what life is like working at the Leeds Congenital Heart Unit now the new ‘Keeping the Beat’ Hybrid Theatre is open…

“First of all, we’re now completely adjacent to all of our other colleagues doing the technical and difficult work in children’s heart surgery and catheter treatment – so we’re completely adjacent to the surgical teams. Very close to the intensive care unit. We’ve already done a number of cases directly with our surgical colleagues where we’ve been able to bring our catheter skills and their surgical skills together – the hybrid cases. We’ve treated a number of children including the smallest child we’ve ever treated at 1.7kilos who had a hybrid procedure a couple of weeks ago. So we’ve done lots of things. It’s been really good to be together, and in a very specific environment designed for what we need to do.”

“Our main interest is in quality rather than efficiency. I don’t know whether we’ll treat more patients because of this but I certainly know we’ll treat them better. I think the equipment will give us better images and allow us to do better treatments, and work with other groups of professionals to get the best outcomes. So we’re not really looking at it in terms of raw numbers, rather in terms of quality.”

“Yes it has, we’re now more able to do procedures without necessarily having to open up patient’s chests to get to the heart and we can do that in different ways. We’ve moved to treating smaller children, with keyhole techniques using this equipment. These patients really are out of hospital quicker and that’s a very important thing for us and for our patients.”

“Undoubtedly, the less invasive we are with treatment i.e. you don’t do a large open incision then patients do recover quicker and get less post-operative pain.”

“The exposure to radiation is significantly less with this equipment because it’s new and state of the art. The x-ray equipment like everything improves massively over time. Our previous cath lab was over 10 years old and the x-ray doses were very much higher than they are now in this new lab, and that’s really important for growing people that are having treatments because you want to minimise exposure. So thank you for that it makes a big difference.”

“And undoubtedly we can do more complex procedures and certainly we have available to use more arrows in our quiver for treating patients with heart problems. We’re able to choose different treatments that are available to us because of this equipment.”

“This is a very technical area of medicine. To be at the forefront and do anything that’s new or better, requires a huge amount of high-end equipment and we’ve got that now. We are able to treat more difficult patients, and we are able to treat smaller patients just as we hoped we would do at the beginning and I think that’s really helping. It’s helping the patients, but it’s also helping us describe and improve some of these treatments that are used elsewhere in the country and the world as well.”

“The one main issue for us at the moment is that obviously congenital heart disease affects patients of all ages – all the way from babies before birth right the way into adult life. And the children we treat have seen the benefit of this, but of course we also have a lot of adults both young and older with heart problems and at the moment we’re now in a children’s environment which means we don’t have this facility available to them. But we hope we’re going to able to work with the hospital to maximise the resource we have and do the best that we can for all of these patients of any age that were born with a congenital heart defect.”

“I guess the unexpected things are that because we’re now closer with lots of our colleagues we have much more of a day to day relationship with them. We’ve always seen our surgical colleagues – the heart surgeons – frequently, but we see the other theatre staff. That’s nice because we’re building up both professional relationships and a team right the way across the board in this area that we didn’t have before.”

“I’d like to say a really big thank you to all the supporters of Children’s Heart Surgery Fund and the Heart Unit here in Leeds. The work and the fundraising you’ve done has really made a massive difference – this is a fantastic facility. And without the charity, and the work that you do to fund CHSF, we really couldn’t make the difference that we are doing to patients with congenital heart disease.”

This week may have been a scorcher but the #ukheatwave can’t stop our super fundraisers! Happy #FundraisingFriday everyone!

Knaresborough Striders: Knareborough Bed Race

Our team of 6 ladies from the Knaresborough Striders ran the Great Knaresborough Bed Race on 8 June for CHSF and are thrilled to have raised our target of £1000.

The bed race is a crazy event involving decorating a bed in the chosen theme (Yorkshire’ this year), parading it through town while dressed up, then stripping the decorations and racing the bed (complete with a passenger!) through the streets of Knaresborough.

We chose to raise money for CHSF because one of our team members, Gosia, has had personal experience of their support. Her daughter Karolina had heart surgery just before she turned three. She is now nine and running some races with her Mum! Her big brother Filip was our bed passenger and was great at encouraging us!

We are very grateful to all our supporters – thanks for helping us support this wonderful charity!

Sarah & Daniel Pickersgill: Abseil

Sarah said:

My brother-in-law Dan and I decided to raise funds for Children’s Heart Surgery Fund to help families that need their support and services now and in the future – just as we did a year ago for my little girls surgery at just 4 months old.

Thanks guys for amazing support! A fantastic £1180 raised!!

Amanda Buckley

This time last year my brave heart warrior Kayden underwent an 8 hour open heart surgery operation and here we are 1 year later, stronger than ever.

I am so proud of all the hurdles our son Kayden has overcome and he has also done amazingly at school along the way.

Many thanks to all the staff at LGI for your continued care and support. Massive thank you to Kayden’s surgeon, Miss Carin Van Doorn and consultant Dr Dom Hares.

Without you all Kayden wouldn’t be loving the life he is living today. The hardest thing we have ever done is have to put our child’s life in their hands and they have never let me down.

To celebrate Kayden’s one year mark we raised awareness of CHD and raised money to help this amazing team do the job they do – they all go above and beyond to help in every way. Without the help from CHSF and team LGI our journey last year would of been far more stressful than it already was.

Feeling inspired to give something back and raise much-needed funds for a great cause? Get in touch with Lisa Williams, on lisa.williams@chsf.org.uk | 0113 831 4810 or download our events calendar here for inspiration and to see other ways to get involved.

This week’s #FundraisingFriday is dedicated to Lucas Brook Tewson who sadly passed away on 18 July 2018. Lucas’ family have since raised an incredible total for Children’s Heart Surgery Fund in his memory…

In memory of Lucas Brook Tewson

A year and a day ago our precious baby boy, Lucas Brook Tewson, passed away in his Mummy’s arms with his Dad beside him holding his hand.

He was just four months old. Lucas was born with a complex type of congenital heart disease known as Shone’s Syndrome.

The strength, courage and bravery that Lucas demonstrated in his short, difficult life, has been matched by the love, kindness and generosity of the families, friends and colleagues of his proud parents.

In the year since his passing, a grand total of £8000 has been raised in memory of Lucas for Children’s Heart Surgery Fund.

Thank you to all those who cared for him and all those who have kept his memory alive during the last year by fundraising for such a worthy cause.

You have touched so many lives Lucas. We couldn’t be more proud of the positive influence you have had on all the people who knew and love you and the funds raised in your memory will continue the love by helping other babies born with congenital heart disease.

Bless you, Lucas Brook.

Your Mummy and Daddio, Sam and Simon Tewson.

Feeling inspired to give something back and raise much-needed funds for a great cause? Get in touch with Lisa Williams, on lisa.williams@chsf.org.uk | 0113 831 4810 or download our events calendar here for inspiration and to see other ways to get involved.

Children’s Heart Surgery Fund are proud to work with the Fundraising Regulator, an independent body who set and maintain the standards for charitable fundraising.

The role of the Fundraising Regulator is as follows:

• To set and promote the standards for fundraising practice (‘the code’ and associated rulebooks) in consultation with the public, fundraising stakeholders and legislators.
• To investigate cases where fundraising practices have led to significant public concern.
• To adjudicate complaints from the public about fundraising practice, where these cannot be resolved by the charities themselves.
• To operate a fundraising preference service to enable individuals to manage their contact with charities.
• Where poor fundraising practice is judged to have taken place, recommend best practice guidance and take proportionate remedial action.

We promise to be honest, fair and open about our fundraising with you, our supporters.

Find out more on the Fundraising Regulator website.

Thank you messages from staff

The videos below feature the brilliant staff from the Leeds Congenital Heart Unit (and beyond), thanking YOU for donations to Children’s Heart Surgery Fund (CHSF). CHSF is able to support the needs of the Heart Unit, which significantly improves outcomes for patients and their families.

we can continue to fund life-saving equipment, the latest staff training, and vital hospital facilities to enhance care and treatment for those who desperately need it.

Who is your inspiration?

This year, we’re building a tapestry of your stories and pictures to celebrate 30 years of amazing fundraising, positive change and memories. We can only do what we do, Because of You, and we want to salute the people responsible for inspiring us all. Head to the main page to view and submit stories here.

It’s #FundraisingFriday! The end of another working week means another chance for us to shout from the rooftops about our amazing supporters! Keep reading to see what they’ve been getting up to…

The Dyson Family

Emily said:

Last year we found out Alice had a heart murmur at 3 days old. A few weeks later she was diagnosed with a large VSD, two further small holes and pulmonary stenosis – and she is due to be having surgery next week.

Alice’s sister, Lila, and one of my best friends who is a teacher in Lincolnshire both decided to do a school bake sale to raise some money for Children’s Heart Surgery Fund. In total they raised over £180!

We would like to thank everyone who took part in both sales – including our local cake maker Mellisscious who donated some beautiful cupcakes!

Lila’s teacher and Year 5 classmates really supported her to promote the sale and lots of them made/brought in some amazing treats, we were really grateful and impressed.

Fantastic work Lila and everyone at your school for bringing, making and buying cakes! We hope you all had an great day and we so grateful for all your hard work!

Sunbeams Nursery
Thorpe Park

Andrew from Sunbeams said:

We became aware of Children’s Heart Surgery Fund when one of our children at Sunbeams became a patient.

We now realise what a wonderful charity this is and are proud to provide continuing support to help other children in similar circumstances

Feeling inspired to give something back and raise much-needed funds for a great cause?
Get in touch with Lisa Williams, on lisa.williams@chsf.org.uk | 0113 831 4810 or download our events calendar here for inspiration and to see other ways to get involved.

What better way to mark the start of the weekend than to say hello to some of this week’s stand out fundraisers?! And this week it is a family affair! Happy #FundraisingFriday everyone!

Mark Barton: Boxing 4 You

Mark said:

This was my third charity boxing match for CHSF and I had fantastic support from LeftJab Promotions.

My son Reggie has gone from strength to strength in his three short years and thanks to CHSF and the Leeds Congenital Heart Unit he is continuing to develop.

As you can imagine it’s close to our hearts but also those of friends and family and we managed to raise £1000!

This was my last charity boxing match but not a chance my last charitable event. Thanks for the support!

And thank YOU Mark for all your hard work and amazing support. We just can’t wait to see what you get up to next to raise money for CHSF!

Reggie & Amy

Mum, Sarah Blanchfield said:

My son Reggie is under the care of the cardiologists at Leeds Children’s Hospital and Children’s Heart Surgery Fund have had a massive impact on his life.

My daughter, Amy, has always been involved in the fundraising that we have done as a family, however this time she took the lead and positioned the possibility of Wear Red Day to her school.

Mrs Plant, the head teacher of Ashbrow School was absolutely amazing and with relatively short notice arranged for the whole school to participate and raised over £400! It was really moving to see the children all wearing red that day and wearing their wristbands ❤️

At a similar time I was approached by Waters Edge Nursery where Reggie attends, to ask about thoughts on doing a fundraising event linked in with Valentine’s Day. I suggested Wear Red Day to interlink with this and the fundraising spanned an entire week raising £150.

I am so touched by the efforts involved and know first hand how much Children’s Heart Surgery Fund means to the families they support. The kids were absolutely made up to hear about where their fundraising money has been used and loved hanging their hearts on the tree!

Feeling inspired to give something back and raise much-needed funds for a great cause? Get in touch with Lisa Williams, on lisa.williams@chsf.org.uk | 0113 831 4810 or download our events calendar here for inspiration and to see other ways to get involved.