Student officers raise over £2,000 for The Sick Children's Trust

The next generation of Essex Police officers held a 24-hour football match to raise money for The Sick Children’s Trust.

15 student officers from Essex Police College’s F intake played a 24-hour football match at the Sandon School in Chelmsford on June 10 to raise money for the children’s charity, The Sick Children’s Trust.

The group took it in turns to keep the match going for 24 hours with our Chief Constable Stephen Kavanagh and Assistant Chief Constable Andy Prophet joining in to kick off the match. They raised over £2,000 in total.

The team chose to raise money for The Sick Children’s Trust after hearing how a member of their class received help from them after the birth of his first child, Toby.

Toby was born in August 2016 at 25 weeks, which made him 15 weeks premature. He was not expected to survive more than 48 hours.

Due to being premature, Toby suffered a multitude of issues which he is still recovering from but his parents were given help from The Sick Children’s Trust when he was moved to The Rosie Hospital in Cambridge to receive life-saving treatment.

His parents were put up in ‘Home from Home’ accommodation courtesy of The Sick Children’s Trust to make sure they were always just a few minutes’ walk from their son’s bedside. After spending 105 days in hospital, Toby was able to go home.

Toby’s parents are keen to fundraise for The Sick Children’s Trust in any way possible and are really grateful to have the support of the students in Intake F.

A student officer from F intake said: “In supporting such a great cause you are allowing families, like Toby's, to be with their babies as they go through some of the hardest and agonising times of their lives. To put it into perspective it costs The Sick Children's Trust £30 a night to host a family, so every donation counts towards this amazing charity.”

Elisa Cappelo-Dowd, Community Fundraising Manager at The Sick Children’s Trust said: “We’re absolutely delighted that students from the Essex Police College’s F Intake chose to support The Sick Children’s Trust. The 24-hour football match sounded like a huge but enjoyable challenge for everyone who took part and the money raised will make a significant difference to thousands of families, like Toby’s, who need a ‘Home from Home’ when their child is seriously ill in hospital. As a charity, we rely entirely on voluntary donations to keep our ‘Homes from Home’ running, so on behalf of every family who relies on our support, we’d like to say a huge thank you to the students.”

If you would like to sponsor our students further with their fundraising, please visit their donations page: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/tobysbiggame