Sussex and Surrey community rallies to support NHS staff

Wellbeing packs and a new restarea are being provided for Surrey and Sussex Healthcare Trust staff thanks to community fundraising.

From running or cycling hundreds of kilometres to performing live lockdown DJ sets, the local community has raised more than £50,000 for staff at East Surrey Hospital - which looks after patients from Horsham and Crawley, as well as Surrey - as they respond to coronavirus.

Local people have undertaken dozens of individual fundraising activities and local businesses have also been raising money for the hospital trust’s staff welfare appeal, which hopes to raise more than £75,000.

Nine year old Haydon Earl from Reigate has raised over £1,100 running 100km in his garden and around his local area during the lockdown.

His mum Charlie said: “Haydon’s younger brother Austin hurt his knee on a trampoline so we had to make a trip to A&E. We had excellent treatment and Haydon said he wanted to raise money for East Surrey hospital as ‘they are all doing such a great job!’.”

Among other fundraisers, a five-year-old girl raised nearly £500 cycling 6km just after learning to ride a bike without stabilisers.

And 60-year-old nursing assistant Kate Knight has run four marathons in four weeks around her local streets, while members of the Redhill Cycling Club have raised nearly £3,000 by holding a virtual Lands End to John O’Groats bike ride.

Run Series, organisers of Run Reigate and Run Gatwick, have also launched a virtual event encouraging people to fundraise for SASH Charity while doing their daily ‘socially-distanced’ exercise.

Meanwhile, Gatwick Airport owners, Vinci Airports, have provided a grant of £8,000 towards creating a new staff welfare room.

Surrey and Sussex Healthcare Trust chief executive Michael Wilson said: “I would like to say a very big thank you to everyone who is raising money for our staff. It’s been relentless for our staff and these donations are allowing us to put in place some immediate respite while we get lots of feedback on how best to spend the majority of the funds. Not only that, but the stories of the fundraising efforts are spurring on our staff too – thank you.”

A message from the Editor, Gary Shipton:

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news, I am asking you to please purchase a copy of our newspapers.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspapers.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

Stay safe, and best wishes.

·