Volunteer success at the Inspiring Volunteer Awards!

The Held In Our Hearts team would like to share a massive congratulations to Alan, Shona, and Jamie for their success in the #InspiringVolunteerAwards last night. Alan has been chosen to receive the brand new ‘Digital’ Volunteer Award, and Shona and Jamie have both been awarded ‘Inspiring Volunteer’ for their outstanding support of Held In Our Hearts. Alan has provided us with his expertise and guidance to enable us to set up a podcast about baby loss, sharing his technical advice, creating our jingle, and much more! With his valuable input we have been able to create a podcast with a variety of guests and topics with over 2,000 downloads, providing a new digital medium for us to engage with our families. Alan’s candid and easy demeanor made the whole process more straightforward and gave us the confidence to believe that we could create something innovative and another way for families to connect with us and others. Shona has also been truly outstanding in all of her fundraising, from running marathons along with her husband and father to arranging amazing ‘Crafty Rainbow’ craft auctions that have raised over the years in excess of £19,000, in memory of her precious son Callum. She coordinates all the volunteers and manages the online auction, often with 300+ items to sort and then package up and post out afterwards. The most recent one in 2021 raised £8,000 for us and the ARC (Antenatal Results and Choices) charity and had over 600 people bidding in the Facebook group! She is tenacious and also incredibly creative. Jamie has worked tirelessly to fundraise for us in memory of her daughter Lyle, with the focus on supporting siblings and families of twin and multiple loss. In August 2019 Jamie had twin girls, Lyle and Alba, but tragically Lyle died suddenly at home, only 3 weeks old. She is an amazing volunteer with boundless energy and focus, inspiring family and friends to join her in KiltWalk events, ‘Santa Stomps’ at school, as well as more local community events too. She has raised in excess of £17,000 and set up Lyle’s Light, a fund that we administer to make sure siblings and twin loss parents are supported. Through Jamie’s fundraising we have been able to purchase books for siblings, as well as more recently purchasing comfort packs for families, who if they have had to rush to hospital, may not have basic items like toiletries, pyjamas for themselves and any other siblings. We are incredibly grateful for their support for our charity, and we are absolutely delighted that their hard work, passion, and dedication is being recognised. Thank you x