Ill children to get helping hand from Aviva Community Fund

Families with seriously ill children across the UK will benefit this year from a donation to WellChild’s Helping Hands Programme made by Aviva Community Fund.

The £25,000 donation will foot the bill for up to 12 Helping Hands projects to improve the lives of seriously ill children by carrying out improvement work on the family home or garden.

The money was awarded to WellChild after we were nominated by our supporters at KGJ Commercial Insurance Ltd. There was a public vote on all the projects nominated and then WellChild won through to the final judging when the project was awarded the top possible amount of £25,000.

KGJ Insurance Group Director Peter Hallam said: “We are delighted to have helped WellChild win this fantastic amount of funding towards their Helping Hands projects. Staff from KGJ Insurance Group have carried out a number of WellChild Helping Hands projects so we know  how much they help the families who receive the support and how work on the home or garden can transform the child’s life.”

The money will buy the materials such as fencing, artificial turf, specialist swings sensory equipment and interactive stimulation panels needed to complete essential bedroom and garden makeovers in the homes throughout the UK. It will allow the children whose homes and gardens are transformed to enjoy experience other children take for granted such as access to outside space to play and socialise with friends and family.

Caring for a seriously ill child or young person with complex care needs can at times be challenging for families. Jobs in the home such as decorating a child’s bedroom or making the garden a safe play space often get pushed to bottom of the priorities list as there simply aren’t enough hours in the day.

WellChild Helping Hands is a unique scheme which, with the support of teams of volunteers from local companies and organisations, tackles these simple but essential home and garden improvements. The scheme runs across the UK and is available to families of seriously ill children and young people.

The projects are managed by WellChild with teams of volunteers from companies such as KGJ Insurance Group carrying out the work. The grant from the Aviva Community Fund will pay for around a third of all the Helping Hands projects carried out in the next 12 months.

WellChild Chief Executive Colin Dyer added: “We would like to thank KGJ Insurance Group very much for nominating us and for their ongoing support for our work both with the Helping Hands Project and more generally. We are delighted the public and the Aviva Community Fund judges saw the value of WellChild’s Helping Hands.”

WellChild provides essential and practical support to ensure that the increasing number of seriously ill children and young people in the UK have the best possible quality of care.

The charity provides a team of WellChild Children's Nurses who work with families to ensure that children with complex care needs can leave hospital and return home and, through its Helping Hands scheme, WellChild enlists the support of volunteers to tackle practical projects in the homes of sick children. In addition, the charity has invested more than £20 million in ground-breaking children's health research projects.

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