by
Kirstie Flack
| Aug 06, 2018
The Bridge Church, St Ives, was the place to be for local families celebrating the Beads of Courage third anniversary.
Children living with long term life-limiting conditions and their families celebrated with a tea party along with members of staff from Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust.
Mags Hirst, play specialist, children's community nursing team said: “We have been incredibly blessed to have an amazing support network of fundraisers who have thrown themselves into a huge array of events to enable us to not only expand the number of children who have beads of courage but also to future proof the programme for many, many years to come – we cannot thank you enough.
“A huge thank you to everyone who helped plan this year’s party by providing ideas and feedback, also a huge thank you to all the children who lent us their beads to show the fundraisers. They have inspired our many fundraisers to throw their all into raising loads of money, as your beads have shown them just how brave and courageous you all are.
“Today there are some very special youngsters here who are the unsung heroes who help out at home, making sure their brother or sister are ok and often spending hours hanging out in hospital.
Today we salute; Mollie, Alfie, Jack, Charlie, Dan and Abbie. Thank you all for coming along today to help us celebrate our 3rd birthday!”
Claire Reece, Hugo’s mum said: “It’s great to have a chart of Hugo’s journey over the years, showing the medical treatments he has had.
“Hugo is nine now, and so far we have beads up to his 4th birthday. I have also written dairies since he was born so we can go back and find out what beads he needs.
“Mags is wonderful and we were really pleased when children in the community could collect the beads as well. Martha my daughter puts all the beads together for Hugo and she really enjoys being part of his journey as well, it’s fantastic and all the children enjoy it.”
The Octagon Cycling Club in Ely cycled 200 miles and raised £5,000 for Beads of Courage! Andy Thomas and Geoff Wilkinson presented the cheque to Sarah Hardman, children’s community nurse. Andy said: “The team go out and ride two or three times a week and through the connection of one of the riders, Neil Bowman, whose sister Sarah Hardman works at the Trust, we decided that the Beads of Courage would be one of our chosen charities this year.
“We wanted to support a local charity where you can see the money being used. We were delighted to raise the money for such a worthy cause.”
Matthew Winn, Chief Executive for the Trust thanked everyone for coming: “All of you here today work hard as parents and families throughout the year but our team, especially Mags, in terms of her role and the rest of the community nursing role, spend 365 days a year supporting people across the county so can I just say a huge thank you to the team who do such a fabulous job!!
If anyone would like to donate to this worthy cause the charitable fund for donations is TSC13 /1108920/Cambs mental health and primary care trust charitable fund.