It was a busy year for the charity in 2020.
Despite Covid 19 severely restricting live fundraising event opportunities, the Charity was successful in exceeding its fundraising budget of £13,000 set in April 2019 for the period to 31st October 2020. Many thanks to everyone who contributed and made that happen.
This success was due in the main to the extremely successful use of online campaigns via Just Giving.
One of these, a marathon campaign by one of the trustees has raised c£3,000, whilst a specifically targeted campaign to raise funds for a defibrillator for East Beach, Southend-on-Sea raised c£1,500
In early 2020, the Charity agreed to work with Southend Council to raise funds for the installation of two defibrillators on Southend-on-Sea seafront. These being two of the first three installed anywhere on the seafront.
Installation was completed at Jubilee Beach in July 2020 and East Beach in September 2020. These being full public access facilities, making the seafront a safer place for locals and visitors alike.
Additionally, the Charity has provided a defibrillator for a local race organiser to use at their events and has also agreed a strategy to focus on funding similar facilities for other clubs within the area where applicable.
A number of grants were made to race organisers and clubs for equipment and to cover the cost of medical facilities at events. Given the pandemic, some of these grants will roll over into 2020/21.
In addition to the provision of three defibrillators as detailed, another key achievement was to fund the set-up costs (£3,000) of a second parkrun in Southend-on-Sea at Chalkwell Beach. This successfully launched in March 2020, being attended by 953 runners during the first three weeks, before the lockdown struck.
2021 has already seen us agree four more grants to local sports clubs and we reiterate once more how grateful we are to all our supporters.