Honourable Heroes

At just five years old, Seren was the youngest person ever to complete the Three Peaks Challenge in 48 hours alongside her dad, Glyn. 

Seren and Glyn started with the highest mountain in the UK, Ben Nevis. Near the summit, they noticed a group of walkers huddling around a woman who seemed to have lost her energy. As darkness loomed, Seren used her climbing experience to help the woman get down the mountain, lighting the way with her torch. It took them two hours to get down the zig zag path to the reservoir where a rescue team met them. 

While Seren’s heroic actions meant they could no longer complete the challenge in under 24 hours, they didn’t give up and completed the two remaining climbs. In doing so, Seren became the youngest person to complete the Three Peaks Challenge in under 48 hours. 

Not only did Seren break a record at such a young age, she also raised over a whopping £7,300, far surpassing her original target of £100.  

Other nominees:
Florence Hooper, Vinnie Thompson and Holly Davis

Kevin and his daughter Natasha took on the 100-mile West Highland Way hiking challenge to raise money for us in honour of their grandson and nephew, Teddy, to say thank you for the care and treatment he received at our hospital. They initially raised over a staggering £5,000, however Kevin had his sights set on more. 

Using his connections with the Goodyear General Workers Union Benevolent Fund, Kevin was able to leverage an incredible donation of over £100,000 in support of various projects throughout the hospital, enabling clinicians to take part in cutting-edge research, care and training. 

Kevin and Natasha are currently planning their next challenge which will hopefully see them trekking across the Sahara Desert later this year. We can’t wait to see what they achieve next. 

Fiona is a one of our shining stars, supporting us in memory of her beloved daughter, Emilia, who passed away in 2009. Since then, Fiona, along with her husband Neil and their three children have raised over a staggering £90,000 for us. 

Another one of our fantastic ambassadors, Fiona has been brilliant at engaging schools, workplaces, friends and family to support us and help with volunteering at various events. For the past two years, she has been a leader at our in memory charitable event, Woodland Walk. Fiona walked the 2.5km course not once, not twice but three times to guide our groups of supporters, chatting to the families taking part while offering support and encouragement. 

As well as being a cheerleader for our charity, the family’s own personal fundraising, which began with an annual hog roast party, has developed into a cycle challenge around their local area and a Christmas tree recycling scheme. Their dedication and commitment to fundraising for us in memory of Emilia is truly special and we will be forever grateful.  

Other nominees:
Rachel Gould and Alex Cookson 

Emma founded The Magic of Milly fundraising group in 2015 following the death of her daughter Milly, who was diagnosed with a very rare congenital heart defect at just three months old. Milly spent the majority of her young life on our hospital’s Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). 

Since its creation, Emma has juggled her full-time job as a police officer with the running of the group. Every year, they work tirelessly to create a fundraising event in Milly’s memory. So far, their fundraising has surpassed an unbelievable £200,000. 

Alongside the events, Emma has continually championed our cause, profile and reputation by encouraging people who had no previous connection to take part in challenge events for us. She’s also helped put together care packages and gifts for families on the ward. This incredible fundraising has enabled our PICU team to purchase state-of-the-art, life-saving equipment, as well as pay for the training of six nurses to learn how to create plaster castings of a patient’s feet or hand so families have a special memento to hold dear forever. 

The tenacity of Emma and The Magic of Milly is invaluable to us and our PICU. 

Other nominees:
Steve Plant and The Azaylia Foundation  

EY has supported us for the past several years thanks to the initial introduction by employees Stephen Wong and Emma Connor, who both have a personal connection to our hospital. Their passion and dedication has led to the Birmingham office raising over an incredible £30,000 through various events and challenges, including a particularly hairraising skydive. 

The EY team is always eager to volunteer their time to ensure they make a difference to our patients in whichever way they can, whether that be planting flowers in our hospital’s gardens or dressing up as Santa and his elves to put priceless smiles on our patients’ faces at our Christmas grotto. 

EY’s phenomenal commitment to us has been recognised company-wide too, where they’ve been praised for their tremendous efforts. 

We’re so proud of Stephen, Emma and the whole of the EY team and are incredibly grateful to be working in partnership with them again for another year.  

In January last year, adi Group selected us as its charity of the year and set the ambitious target of raising £40,000. The team were extremely keen to embed the partnership throughout the business to make a real impact. Throughout the year, they’ve planned and arranged a number of events, including a very competitive five-a-side footy tournament, a golden ticket activity at a manager’s away day and have encouraged many individuals to take on a number of physically gruelling challenges. Thanks to its many fundraisers, the team collectively smashed their initial target, ending the year having raised an outstanding £68,000. 

They’ve also kindly donated their time, volunteering to help maintain our Matron’s Garden and they finished the year off by hosting 80 members of our staff and their families for a festive meal at the Birmingham Hilton Metropole as a thank you for all their wonderful work. The past year has been utterly amazing and we’re delighted we can continue to work in partnership with them for another year. 

Since 2020, Gymshark has raised over a transformational £459,000 for our hospital. Last year, the team donated over a phenomenal £74,400 after participating in a number of activities including a brutal Three Peaks in 24 hours challenge, which saw 40 Gymshark colleagues embark on the event in horrendous weather conditions. With grit, determination and a huge amount of support for each other, they achieved their goal and raised over £50,000. This in itself is remarkable, however the team has gone over and above to make this partnership something truly special. 

Colleagues from across the whole business have taken part in many volunteering days, given up Saturday mornings to distribute Christmas decorations around our hospital (which they also kindly stored for us throughout the year) and even designed and produced a bespoke kit for our hospital’s Transplant Games team and their supporters. 

Gymshark are more than just a partnership and have truly become part of our family. We are beyond lucky to have them on board.  

Mr William Lo, one of the paediatric neurosurgeons at our hospital, has been integral in shaping our iMRI appeal. On many occasions, Will has given up his time and offered his expertise to help us build the appeal, bringing to life the story of a neurosurgery patient and their family as well as the current challenges they face, and how having an interoperative MRI scanner will transform these experiences. 

No ask is too big or small for Will; from fronting the appeal, helping us shoot the promotional video, taking part in TV and radio interviews, attending events, hosting tours and delivering training for his team so they can speak confidently about this important project, Will has thrown himself into every task with enthusiasm, driven by his passion to help his patients. As a result, he has directly helped us secure several high-value gifts, edging us ever closer to hitting the £1.5m target.  

Having such a willing and helpful clinical lead at the head of one of our appeals is invaluable and we cannot thank Will enough for all that he’s done and continues to do.