Dancing, donations and family fun at Haywards Heath Goes Gold activity morning

Shopping centre manager Nicola Bird said her team was thrilled to help organiser Kerry Leppard put the activity morning together and thanked the Leppard family for choosing the venue.

The Carey School of Irish Dancing, Alegra Spanish Dancers and others entertained crowds in the staging area, while Haywards Heath Town Football Club held a raffle with prizes donated by local businesses.

Children also had fun on a bouncy castle and The Leppard family held their own tombola.

“The centre was alive with fun and footfall reached over 20,000,” said Nicola.

“It was a fantastic day, all in aid of raising awareness of childhood cancer,” she said.

Kerry Leppard said September is the international month of childhood cancer awareness and its symbol is the gold ribbon.

She said last year’s event saw gold children’s bikes placed throughout Haywards Heath to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of cancer, as well as the challenges that children with cancer and their families face.

“It is an area of cancer research that is under funded,” said Kerry, adding that less than two per cent of Cancer Research UK’s funds go to childhood cancer.

This means it is not researched as much as it could be, she said.

“We believe raising awareness equates to raising funds to research kinder treatments and hopefully cures,” said Kerry.

Haywards Heath Goes Gold promotes gold ribbon pin badges across the town (as well as bikes) and gives boxes to businesses to sell throughout September.

Kerry said the pin badges are supplied by Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group and all the money raised through their sale goes straight to this organisation.

“The additional fundraising done by us (like Saturday) and other supporters (St Paul’s baby and toddler group and Netballerz have held events this year) is paid into a virgin money giving account, which is split equally between CCLG and Young Lives at the end of the month,” she said.

Kerry said her family was directly affected by childhood cancer when her two-year-old daughter was diagnosed with a rare liver cancer in 2014.

“She is now nine and thriving – we are the lucky ones,” said Kerry.

She added that Haywards Heath Goes Gold has had support from Haywards Heath Football Club, Mid Sussex District Council, Haywards Heath Town Council and The Orchards shopping centre, and has 17 gold bikes around town.

The activity morning on September 25 was successful, she said, raising more than £700 and Kerry is excited to see how much the total is from the pin boxes.

“My niece raised over £1,000 in sponsorship to cut her hair on Saturday morning,” she added.

Click here to visit the Virgin Money Giving page or here to visit the Haywards Heath Goes Gold Facebook Group.