Northern Lights: A huge well done Edie and thank you so much for supporting #TeamTheo!

Continuing on from the success of our 2022 Snowflakes, where we had an incredible £364,000 pledged by individuals, families, businesses, community groups and schools, we’ve been celebrating the Lunar New Year with a 5m dragon lighting up the Outpatients Department of Sheffield Children’s Hospital.

The dragon is brand new for 2023; it isn’t something that we’ve ever done before, and we’re really happy that our amazing supporters have gotten behind it. In a similar way to our snowflakes, the dragon has been sponsored and each benefactor has received their very own Chinese lantern-style tag with their name on it.

As I write, we’ve currently had over £13,000 pledged for our dragon. An incredibly generous amount which will go towards our Helipad Appeal, to help us get even closer to our £6million target.

Keep an eye out for the dragon if you’re passing the hospital over the next couple of weeks, as it looks truly fantastic!

We were also the official charity partner for the Lunar New Year event at Sheffield City Hall, organised by Jerry Cheung from New Era Development Ltd and Kelvin Quick from China Red, along with many other volunteers. It was a real pleasure to be able to attend the celebrations; to be able to see the magnificent dragon dancing, enjoy the wonderful performances and music, and the fantastic food!

As well as the Lunar New Year celebrations, we opened sign-up in January for two very exciting fundraisers that will also support our Helipad Appeal.

Firstly, this month sees the return of Pyjama Day! Taking place on Friday February 10 , we’re inviting individuals, families, schools and businesses to wear their pyjamas for a whole day.

It’s the perfect fundraiser, because all you have to do is don your best comfies for a whole day – no training required!

Last year, Pyjama Day raised just under £8,000 – a phenomenal amount – so this year, the third year of the event, we want to smash that target.

Our other fundraiser is called Helipad Heroes, where we’re asking our supporters to become marvel-ous superheroes to help us make the helipad a reality.

The concept is simple – our supporters sign-up for the campaign on our website. After doing so, they’ll receive one of our fundraising packs in the post then all they need to do is a fundraising activity of their choice.

It could be anything from a sponsored run or five-a-side football match; to a bake sale or office sweepstake. The beauty of this fundraiser is that it’s completely flexible and supporters are free to do anything they like, knowing that no matter what they do, all of the money raised will make a huge difference to our patients, families and staff.

We are at a very exciting point in our fundraising for the Helipad Appeal. For those of you that don’t know, we’ve been raising money to build a life-saving new helipad on the roof of our Emergency Department, which is one of only five dedicated paediatric Major Trauma Centres in the country.

We know that things are difficult at the moment and that the cost of living crisis continues to impact everyone in different ways, so we’re forever thankful that so many people continue to support us in any way they can.

All donations really do make such a big difference, whether it’s a child saving their pocket money every week or a business sponsoring our dragon, every single bit of fundraising that our supporters do gets us ever closer to achieving our goal of raising the £6 million needed for our new helipad

Just last week, I felt inspired by a young person who brought a donation to our Charity Hub in the hospital’s Outpatients Department.

Her name is Edie, she’s just nine-years-old, and this absolute superstar became our very first Helipad Hero after a bake sale that she held raised an incredible £227.60 for the helipad.

I’d like to say a huge well done Edie and thank you so much for supporting #TeamTheo!

To join #TeamTheo, please visit our website at tchc.org.uk