High Wycombe, UK – 28th April 2016
Following a successful year of trading, activereach has decided to donate a percentage of profits to two local charities.
The charities were selected by the company’s employees and management team from a shortlist of local fund raising organisations.
activereach’s chosen charities for 2016
The two nominated charities are:
Orla’s Own Steps – Please visit www.justgiving.com/orlasownsteps for more information.
Thames Valley Air Ambulance – Please visit http:/www.tvairambulance.org.uk/ for more information.
Mike Revell, Managing Director at activereach, comments:
“We are delighted to be able to help these two very worthy causes. We are a small business, but acknowledge that we have a responsibility to help others in the wider community and will be closely following the progress of our nominated charities throughout the year.”
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FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Lorna Fimia, Marketing Manager, activereach Ltd
Email: lorna.fimia@activereach.net
Tel: 0845 625 9025
NOTES TO EDITOR:
About Orla’s Own Steps
Orla was born 5 weeks premature and after a complicated birth she had to be resuscitated, the worst 15 minutes of our lives waiting for her to take her first breath felt like a life time. Orla spent 24 hours on ventilators and 8 days in the neonatal ward. Bringing her home felt even more special than we could ever have imagined. At 11 months old we started to realise that not all was right, Orla’s lower limbs seemed much stiffer than other babies and at a regular visit to her pediatrician they decided to refer her for physiotherapy.
Orla was introduced to the world of seeing therapists weekly with lots of prodding and poking and tests. At 2 years old she was diagnosed with “developing Spastic Diplegic Cerebral Palsy” (basically for Orla over tight muscles in her legs) and at 23 months our 2 years of the unknown and uncertainty was confirmed when Orla had her first general anaesthetic to have an MRI scan which confirmed the brain damage and the diagnosis we were so hoping was going to be wrong.
We obviously want Orla to have a bright, successful and happy future with the smallest amount of intervention and procedures and we believe, that for her, she would benefit from an operation that was pioneered in America and is now being carried out in the UK and is very successful.
The operation Orla will need is a procedure called Selective Dorsal Rhizotomy (SDR). At this moment in time the NHS will not fund the operation for Orla, however they are carrying out trials on children who fit into a certain criteria. Orla is not one of these children but she has been assessed by Great Ormond Street Hospital and we have been told that she would be a good candidate for the operation here in the UK at GOSH.
Orla is not quite ready for this operation. The operation is a gruelling 5-6 hours and more importantly Orla will require 3-4 sessions of private physiotherapy a week for up to 3 years. We have a huge amount of work to do in strengthening her physically and mentally so that she is strong enough for this procedure.
To fund this operation and the physiotherapy pre and post operation along with equipment and intensive fitness sessions we need to raise approximately £85,000About Thames Valley Air Ambulance
Thames Valley Air Ambulance is the only Charity responsible for funding and operating the air ambulance serving the communities of Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. Since 1999, the Charity has responded to more than 15,500 missions averaging 3 each day, making it one of the longest established and busiest air ambulance organisations in the UK.
The Charity’s aircraft carry a crew comprising of a pilot, a doctor and a paramedic plus a full life-support medical equipment. Operating from RAF Benson, the maximum flying time to hospital from anywhere in the region is less than 15 minutes. If a patient reaches hospital within 60 minutes of injury (referred to as ‘Golden Hour’) their chances of survival are dramatically increased. That is why the rapid response of the air ambulance is so vital in an emergency situation.
TVAA receives no Government or National Lottery Funding. The Charity is fortunate to count on tremendous public support and good will, but never takes this for granted. That is why we regard the real ‘heroes’ as not only the flight and medic crews, but those often unsung ground hereos, the volunteers and fundraisers.
