Sir Graham Wylie CBE

A huge thank you to our wonderful Patron, Sir Graham Wylie CBE, who supports CHUF in so many ways.

In 2009 his twins were born, and the family were devastated to find that one of them had a serious heart defect. Kiera had open heart surgery three times in her first two years of life and Sir Graham says he feels forever indebted to the Children’s Heart Unit at the Freeman hospital for saving his daughter’s life. He became a patron of CHUF, and helped the charity to raise several million pounds  to help fund the building of an accommodation facility for parents of children going through surgery as well as updating much of the equipment used by the children’s heart unit.

Despite setting up a charity of his own, Sir Graham Wylie continues to support CHUF, hosting the annual toddle at one of his business sites Close House, free of charge. His generosity and guidance is invaluable in helping CHUF with our work to support children and babies who are born with or who develop heart conditions. We can’t thank you enough Graham!

To find out more about Sir Graham’s incredible career and support of CHUF please visit our Patron section.

Mark Savage

A huge thank you to Mark Savage who regularly donates his time to provide complimentary photography for our CHUF events!

Mark has continued to support CHUF since meeting Heart Hero Elodie Gray and her family in 2015 whilst photographing her dad Colin completing his coast to coast challenge for CHUF.

Since then Mark has photographed our Christmas parties, CHUF Toddles, Balls and much more!

We can’t thank you enough Mark!

Charity Escapes

CHUF  teamed up with Charity Escapes since their very beginnings. Charity escapes is itself a charity which aims to arrange raffle prizes to support fundraising events with the proceeds donated back to good causes.

Working with hotels, restaurants, holiday and leisure providers who donate their products and services, Charity Escapes is able to provide us with amazing prizes for our fundraising events at a fraction of the cost, thus maximising funds raised.

For more information please visit: www.charityescapes.com

Thank you so much!

If you have a holiday home and would like more information about donating a stay to CHUF, please get in touch with us at info@chuf.org.uk.

We’d love to thank our friends at Safestore Self Storage Newcastle Wallsend for their continued support of CHUF over many years, donating storage space for all of our events materials – we really appreciate your generosity!

Sir Graham Wylie Foundation

The Sir Graham Wylie Foundation has supported the CHUF annual Toddle for a number of years. Sponsorship provided supports event costs such as the funfair, catering and loo facilities, signage, face-painters and goodie bags.

In 2020 when a pandemic swept away all live family and fundraising events, the Sir Graham Wylie Foundation allowed CHUF to adapt their funding to support the charity’s first ever Virtual Toddle. They provided £10,000 of match funding, meaning that families raising money for their own covid secure home toddles, cound have their sponsorship matched. This helped raised over £21,000 at a time when CHUF’s Heart Heroes desperately needed it.

The second Virtual toddle is set to take place this year, and Sir Graham Wylie Foundation has once again pledged their support with the offer of match-funding. We simply cannot thank the foundation enough for their loyal, ongoing support of Heart Families and CHUF!

Trusts and Foundations

CHUF is fortunate to have developed wonderful relationships with an array of grant-giving trusts and foundations who care about the same things that we do.

In recent times in particular, CHUF turned to some of these amazing supporters, who have helped with a wide range activity from meeting unanticipated new needs arising from Covid-19 such as feeding families and paying for additional parent accomodation, to helping CHUF purchase new portable medical equipment such as Echocardiograms and Saturation monitors, or supporting new online services. To all the organisations that have entrusted CHUF with incredible grants, you have our heartfelt gratitude. We hope to continue working together to improve the lives of Heart Heroes for many years to come!

Long time supporters-JT Dove

As a legacy of the amazing support of the CHUF’n’builders, JT Dove went on to support CHUF with a goal to raise £30k.

Both JT Dove and the Children’s Heart Unit Fund are based in the North East, and that was important for the builder’s merchants. Steve Robinson, Managing Director at JT Dove, was enthusiastic about the charity: “We wanted to raise a meaningful amount of money for a charity where that money would make a real, tangible difference. CHUF is based in Newcastle so it’s close to our hearts, and it helps so many young children across the UK that it was an easy choice. Last year’s efforts were fantastic, and this year we’ve got lots going on across branches so we’re confident we can double up on the success.”

The charity effort sees all 17 JT Dove sites across the North East getting involved, with events being held throughout the year. By involving their customers, the business aims to make charity fun for all – with golf days, sponsored walks and bike rides, bake sales, body waxing, customer race days and even a charity van wash.

In their 150th anniversary year, JT Dove held a grand ball for their staff, clients and suppliers and were able to announce that in this special year, the team had smashed their £100k target for CHUF.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, it didn’t stop the company’s support of CHUF and they donated the Christmas raffle’s top prize worth an astonishing £1000.

CHUF Cannot thank JT Dove enough for their ongoing support!

On the 11th January 2009, Ivan and Nadine Hollingsworth were blessed with the birth of their beautiful son Sebastian. Their dream quickly turned into a nightmare, as 15 hours after his birth Seb was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect (CHD) called Tetralogy of Fallot which, if left untreated, meant he wouldn’t see his 2nd birthday.

Seb deteriorated earlier than expected and at just four months old, the decision was taken by the surgical team at the Freeman Hospital to perform emergency surgery. After six hours in theatre, a rollercoaster week in Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and four weeks on Ward 23, they finally got to take their son home. Seb will require further open heart surgery within the next couple of years and again when he is an adult.

The events of 2009 spurred the family into charity fundraising mode and they set up Seb4CHUF – to say THANK YOU to the Freeman Hospital for saving Seb’s life!

Over the years Seb4CHUF have raised the funds to fully refurbish and extend the playroom on the Children’s Heart Unit, to fund a play specialist post working at the Unit and also provide ongoing support allowing CHUF to continue to help more families, like the Hollingsworth family.

You can find out more about the amazing achievements of the family and all who have supported Seb4CHUF fundraising at www.seb4chuf.org.uk.

We are delighted to announce another amazing challenge by our Parent Trustee and outstanding fundraiser Ivan Hollingsworth! Ivan will be taking on his final and toughest challenge in aid of CHUF, from London to the Children’s Heart Unit at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle (finishing where his families journey began). He will cycle 260 miles and run 52 miles in one go! Since Ivan’s son Seb underwent major open heart surgery at the Freeman Hospital back in 2009, he has raised over £480,000.00 for CHUF in an effort to thank those who saved his Son’s life. The aim for his final and most brutal challenge is to get him past the astonishing Half a Million mark!

To find out more and follow Ivan’s Half a million, Half a country challenge click here.

The Petrucci Family

Sergio & Emma Petrucci began their fundraising in 2016 after their daughter Luna received lifesaving heart surgery a week before her 2nd birthday. The very first Red Sky Ball for CHUF raised over £47,000 and in March 2017 their second event raised a massive £60,000! The couple then decided to launch a brand new event, The Red Sky Brunch for CHUF, with over 300 tickets sold within weeks of launching.

Thanks to support from the Petrucci’s Red Sky Ball event, CHUF was able to secure ‘Luna the Snowdog’ as part of the North East trail in autumn 2016, she now has a permanent home on the Children’s Heart Unit on Ward 23 at Freeman Hospital!

We can’t thank the Petrucci family enough for their fundraising efforts that spanned an incredible 4 years!