We are delighted to have funded two amazing projects – now completed and in place – at the Oxford Children’s Hospital, following on from our biggest single donation in 2024 of £15,000.
In 2023 on the end of our finale to our celebrations of our landmark £100,000 lifetime raised across 21 years, we were delighted to provide £15,000 as the icing on the cake to our £100k celebration year – enough to fund two projects which is already changing, transforming, and in terms of children’s cardiac care, saving lives for young patients across the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust.
Melanie’s Ward is the specialist teenage ward at the Oxford Children’s Hospital, and a ward we have close affilitation to – as our named patient room sits on the ward, following £40,000 we raised by 2016 to sponsor ‘The Play2Give Room‘, formally opened with a ribbon-cutting moment in 2017. So it is great to have invested funds into the ward to help brighten the day room with a beautiful artwork installation costing over £5,300 – and has made a previous blank and uninspiring space more colourful and inviting, with a lovely hue of colours.
The installation was unveiled at the end of February, and Andy is pictured with Play Lead Specialist, Jo Pinney.
We also was able to fund a much needed echo probe, which arrived in the later part of next year, for use in children having cardiac procedures – costing £6,298.
The Echo probe works to give real time images of the heart’s structure and function.
In 2025, we gave a further £7,000 – funds raised in 2024 – to the Children’s Hospital which is planned to fund an extra-ventricular drainage system for children having neurosurgery – and is particularly poignant to fund as Andy had brain surgery as a 12-year old, spending time in the former Radcliffe Infirmary, after being born with a brain injury.
We are looking forward to providing further funds this year, from last year’s valiant efforts and events from another successful year, and seeing what other projects for children’s medical care we can make possible.
To date, we have now raised over £124,000 (and rising!) for the hospital across two decades – and 2027 will be a big year for us as we turn 20 years old as a charity. Overall 2027 marks an entire 25 years of dedicated Chox giving from Andy, as he was just 14 years old when he raised his first £1,000 at St Birinus School – as his first foray into fundraising to make the dream of the hospital a reality.
We plan to celebrate both these incredible milestones with our seventh ‘Hearts’ themed Ball on March 6th 2027, and with another Party on the Park open to all of the community for all ages in Summer 2027.
Thank you to Oxford Hospitals Charity – and for including us on their brand new supporters wall of thanks, which features their top supporters across two years. The new wall of thanks was formally unveiled in the Atrium of the Children’s Hospital entrance at the end of February, where all those featured – with groups like us, were presented with certificates of appreciation. If you are ever visiting the Children’s Hospital or the West Wing on the John Radcliffe site, do take a look to find the special new wall – and other familiar names, who also support us, include Wallingford School, who raised £10k last summer with a sponsored walk.
If you’ve ever supported us with donations, taken part in or attended our events and activities, given so generously on stalls and bake sales, volunteered or raised funds for us, thank you – your continued support enables us to continually make an incredible difference in changing, transforming, and saving young patients lives.
We continue to be enormously grateful.