“16 years ago, on 20th March 2007, my twin daughters were born. While Carrie was perfectly healthy, her twin sister Olivia was born with pulmonary stenosis.
“I chose to fundraise for Children’s Heart Surgery Fund as I know first-hand how important they are to so many families of ‘heart warriors’…”
Kevin continued…
“With the help of CHSF and the doctors and staff at the LGI, Olivia received a balloon angioplasty operation in May 2007 which was a success but had side effects and caused her to have a stroke. Without CHSF this already traumatic experience would have been so much more stressful.
“My wife and Carrie were provided a place to stay at the hospital. This enabled my wife to rest and be at my daughter’s side, while still looking after Carrie. If there was an emergency, she was just minutes away, not miles. My wife and Carrie stayed at the LGI for several weeks while Olivia was in intensive care.
Since our Charity was founded in 1988, we estimate CHSF has provided around 10,000 families with accommodation in the hospital while their child is having heart surgery or receiving other life-saving treatment.
Please consider donating to our Christmas Appeal ‘Stay Another Day’ to ensure more families can benefit from CHSF-funded accommodation in the hospital.
“CHSF did a fantastic job helping look after my daughters and my wife during this difficult time and today does this for 1000’s of children with heart problems and their families every year.
“Back in 2019 I was in the pub with some mates we wanted to start exercising to get in shape, so we booked to run a Tough Mudder. This I raised around £400 for CHSF, and I really enjoyed the experience so this year I wanted something more challenging – as I was turning 40 years old and Olivia was turning 16!
“I wanted to run the London Marathon but unfortunately, I was unsuccessful in getting a place so I thought I’ll look to run the same distance as a marathon but do obstacles along the way. I couldn’t find an OCR that long but I did find that Tough Mudder did an endurance run.
“The challenge was 8 hours to run as many laps of their course as you could but any obstacles you didn’t complete, you had to do a forfeit before you started the next lap.
“I managed to run 46km in just under 8hours 30mins, and was ranked 38th out of nearly 200 runners.”
“When you start to struggle just think of all the heart warriors that you are helping. Without people like you, Children Heart Surgery Fund wouldn’t exist.“
Due to raising money for CHSF, the charity made it possible for me to run the Great North Run in September, this was my first Half Marathon. I only ran 10K at the most while training for the Tough Mudder – taking part in a few races like Pontefract, Leeds and York but never as far as the Great North Run at 21km.
“I not only ran the half marathon, but I beat my 2 hour goal, getting an impressive finish time of 1:56:24. Despite on the day of the run it was really hot, making it even more difficult.
“My favourite thing about taking on these challenges was the feeling of pride – because of me this charity will be able to help people.
“That feeling not only helped me when I was part way along the GNR route and was struggling due to the heat, or when I physically couldn’t pull myself out of the muddy mile at Tough Mudder – but all the hours of training and early morning runs.
“My advice to anyone thinking of fundraising for CHSF – aim high and believe in yourself.”
You can achieve anything you set your mind to, knowing that you are helping this charity will help you get there.
When you start to struggle just think of all the heart warriors that you are helping. Without people like you, Children Heart Surgery Fund wouldn’t exist.
The charity will put any money you raise to good use so be extremely proud of yourself no matter how much you can raise!
A huge thank you to heart dad Kevin for for choosing to fundraise for CHSF and take on these incredible challenges to raise money for our patients and families.
We are so grateful to Kevin’s friends and family and everyone who donated to his fundraising page. A brilliant £1,140 raised!
GREAT NORTH RUN
8th September 2024
TOTAL & JUNIOR WARRIOR
22nd & 23rd June 2024
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