As we enter into the New Year, Hand on Heart’s officially celebrates its 3^rd Birthday in January.

 

It’s been an incredible year for Hand on Heart, as it has officially succeeded in creating a Heart Safe city in Salford, has made countless schools across the UK Heart Safe and hosted the third successful Hand on Heart Awards, with plans already in motion for the fourth.

We’ve been very lucky to have such fantastic supporters who have dedicated their time to helping us raise funds to help create more Heart Safe environments.

Wellington School managed to raise a phenomenal £31,383.87 for Hand on Heart through various fundraisers such as a Sponsored fun run, a Golf Day and Christmas Fayres. We were stunned to receive such a huge amount and are so thankful to the generosity of the school and its pupils for their hard work and commitment to our cause.

In the past year, we were not only shortlisted for the 2014 Salford Business Awards, but we were awarded Charity of the Year at the Annual Heart of Salford Awards – an award designed to recognise those who are committed to helping their local community, this came just days after announcing Salford a Heart Safe city!

As well as successfully create a Heart Safe community in Salford, we began 2 new Campaigns in the areas of Kendal and Chorley. We are dedicated to helping both communities become equipped with life-saving defibrillators, as well as helping schools and public areas across the UK too.

Earlier in the year, we were awarded £10,000 through the Big Lottery Fund, an organisation responsible for giving out 40% of the money raised for charities and good causes by the National Lottery. The money is split and awarded to charities and organisations, to help them continue their work in helping local areas and making the UK a safer place. From this we were able to make 13 schools in the Cumbria area Heart Safe, which was a terrific start to our new campaign.

In addition to making many more schools across the UK Heart Safe, receiving support from different companies as their charity of the year, we were pleased to welcome Paddy McGuinness as new Ambassador to our team! We’re looking forward to working with Paddy more in 2015 and are so excited to have him on board to make a difference in creating Heart Safe environments.

We’re incredibly please to have achieved so much in our 2^nd year and can’t wait to see what our 3^rd brings! We’d like to thank all of our supporters for helping us reach our goals and raise awareness of our charity – from this, we have been able to reach out to so many more schools and help them gain life-saving skills and become equipped with AEDs.