Thank you

• Thank you to Mick Wyeth and The Hot Dog Rockers for raising £949.63 by bucket collections at a few of their gigs. And Thank you to the bands who also supported The Hot Dog Rockers in raising this amount:-
  • The John Lawrence Band
  • Strohm
  • Perfect Strangers
  • Borrowed Time
  • Rio Grande
  • The Heroes
  • Sirius
• A massive Thank you to Charlotte and Roger Waring for organising The Portslade Christmas Tree Recycle and raised £623 . Charlotte said “We would like to thank everyone who signed up and donated and also the many local businesses in Portslade who displayed posters. A special mention goes to Olus Environmental for taking all the trees without charge, JBS Print for designing and printing the posters and flyers for free, and our company Old Village Home & Garden Services, as we used our van and trailer etc to do the actual collections”
• Dave, family and residents for putting on a dazzling display of Christmas lights in Eton Rd, Worthing during December. This popular annual event has increased in size with other residents joining in. From donations and a raffle an incredibly generous £1,300 was raised. In the last three years, these amazing festive displays have raised over £3,300. Put the date in your diary for 2023 from 1^st December.
• Wanda who created a magical Christmas light and decoration display in her garden raised a brilliant £287. Wanda plans her displays a year in advance. She also gets a special visit from Santa is a popular attraction for the whole Steyning community. This year a wonderful £287.00 was raised. (photo attached)
• Joe in Ford puts up a glittering display on his house each year for all the local children and residents to enjoy. This year he raised a sparkling £180. Since 2017, Joe has raised £1,050 from his Christmas light displays.
• Worthing Lions collected £220 from the generous public on a festive walk with Santa Claus.
• Mazda MX5 Owners Club ran a raffle at their charity lunch held at the Squire & Groom in Bury and raised a fantastic £190
• Queens Castles, a Worthing based family run inflatable hire company held a family fun day at the Charmandean Centre. It was fully sold out with lots of happy excited children. Also a thank you to local stores Tesco and Sainsbury’s who donated refreshments and items for the raffle. Sidney Squirrel came along too, and he was very popular. A magnificent £946 was raised, of which £600 was raised from the raffle.
• Interim Bereavement Group of Worthing had a talk from Caroline one of our Community Fundraisers about the hospice and they generously donated £88.

Thank you to all the staff and students at Bexhill Sixth Form College in the Business Studies Department for once again taking on the £50 Challenge. The charity offers the £50.00 as a ‘seed fund’ for each group undertaking their own fundraising challenge. Previous successes have included an awesome evening of show tunes held at the college’s theatre with the money covering the cost of promoting he event, such as printing of posters and flyers, and helping raise nearly £1,000.00 on the night. We’re wishing you all the best of luck with your up-and-coming fundraising events.

Find out about the £50 challenge

A massive well done and Thank you to 9 year old Blake Hudson-Ide for running 5k and raising a whopping £1730. He was inspired after listening to a talk about Chestnut Tree House at his school assembly. Please get in touch if your school or group would like a talk or presentation.

Thank you to all the staff and visitors at the ever-amazing Knockhatch Adventure Park who welcomed us at their special Chestnut Tree House day on Saturday, 18 February. Your support helped raise an incredible £1,307.46, with the awesome Raiders Vaiders attracting a lot of attention!

• Thanks to Bubbles Bargain World in Bognor for raising £770 throughout the World Cup and Anthony even sung the Welsh National Anthem (in Welsh) for the England V Wales game. Amazing effort and who knew that learning something new, whilst in lockdown, would be put to such good use!
• Thanks Billingshurst Choral Society for raising £303 at their Christmas Concert bringing their 2022 total to £1674.
• Thanks to Felpham Community College for raising £1,050
• David challenged himself to 200 burpees a day until his baby was born. He really threw himself into the task each day and raised an incredible £400.
• A superb £104 was raised by Worthing WI at their Arts and Crafts fair in December
• Vanessa invited friends to her house for a Christmas Jewellery party and raised a sparkling £200
• Over the year, the Silver Songs Singing Group at Our Lady Star of the Sea in East Preston sang their way to raising the roof and a splendid £200.
• Thank you to Simon Poland for raising an incredible £8,000 by completing Everest Base Camp Trek.
• Thank you to Harwoods Group for raising £833 by taking part in a Christmas Jumper Day!
• Thank you to Nick Brighton of Brighton Bricks for supporting the Love LEGO event at our Brighton Chestnut Tree House shop and organising a LEGO mini-figure trail in the local area to raise funds.
• Bourne Chorus: What a spectacular evening it was at The Royal Hippodrome Theatre in Eastbourne with stunningly beautiful performances. The exit collection raised £259.11.
• Little Chelsea Festive Fun: It was an absolute pleasure to be invited to be part of these local celebrations with Chestnut Tree House supporters keen to engage and help raise £164.27 for the hospice.
• Shrimp: Every year this courageous teenager sets himself a crazy challenge and this year Shrimp took on a bungee jump up in Whitby and raised over £2,020 for the hospice!
• Morrisons Eastbourne: Our thanks go to Kim Hatcher-Davies, the Community Champion at the Morrisons Eastbourne store for offering to support the charity by displaying some of the bespoke artwork created by the children.
• South Downs TR Register: Our thanks go to this group of car enthusiasts who raised £174.60
• The Outdoors Project – Lewes: Our thanks go to Connor McNally and all his team at the Outdoors Project for raising £55.00 at one of their sessions, which are always great fun, providing outdoor stimulation in lots of forms for kids of all ages.
• 3^rd Bexhill Brownies: Each year this fabulous gang of Brownies join in the Reindeer Fun challenge and raise sponsorship money for the hospice, and it was lovely to be able to accompany them on their run along Bexhill beachfront on Friday, 9 December even if it was blowing a right hooley! Two of the girls raised £238 between them!!St. Richards College, Bexhill on Sea: Thank you for inviting us to be part of your school assembly and talk with the Year 7 students who took on the task of raising as much money as possible as part of their Reindeer Fun challenge.Langney Primary Academy: The staff and over 500 students once again took part in the charity’s annual Reindeer Fun fundraiser helping bring in an awesome £1,169.81, and took the opportunity to invite along some living, breathing and very cuddly reindeer for all to enjoyAll our other amazing Reindeer Fun fundraisers:
  • Lutine Bell
  • The Farmyard Nursery and Woodyard Forest School
  • Hamsey Community Primary School
  • Bluebell Hill Nurseries
  • Oakwood Primary Academy
  • South Downs Community Special School
  • Scott Ward, Eastbourne Hospital
  • Willingdon Primary School
  • Claremont School
  • Torfield School
  • High Cliff Academy
  • Little Poppets Childcare
  • United Swimming Academy, in Lewes
  • Copperfields Nursery, Eastbourne

• Dave and Iris of Worthing celebrated their birthdays with a street party. Family, friends and neighbours supported them generously raising an incredible £292! And it doesn’t stop there, this December Dave, Iris and Dave Junior will be decorating their house in Eton Road, Worthing with hundreds of glittering light and Christmas decoration displays. In its third year, it’s a well-supported event and they also run a very popular raffle. Well worth a visit and last year they raised over £1,200
• Thanks to Suzy Smith Racing stables who opened her stables as part of National Horserace Week, and allowed us to serve refreshments from which we raised £413.61. It was a lovely morning and a fitting tribute to Her Majesty who loved her horses and actually had horses at this yard in the 60s!
• Thank you to the marvellous Rother Community Choir for their donation of £300.00.  It was an absolute pleasure to be invited along to their postponed Summer Jubilation Concert, at St Mark’s Church in Little Common on Saturday, 10 September.  Not only were the choir amazing, but the wonderful Sammy Lou also entertained the audience, and she also kindly donated half of her appearance fee, too – so generous! Thanks to everyone.
• Thank you to Lynda Gurr for being our local Tin Collector, covering the Bexhill-on-Sea area. Lynda started off fundraising for us back in January 2009 when she organised a coffee morning and raised an awesome £600.00. It was in the summer of 2012 that Lynda started to pop into local businesses and encourage them to have a collection tin, swapping them over as they filed up. We would like to say a massive “Thank You” to Lynda for all her fantastic support over the years.  Please enjoy your ‘retirement’.
• Thank you to Richard Gurr Hairdressers of Battle for all your fundraising over the past 11 years, including your latest donation of £130.36 which must have filled your collection tin!  Richard has now ‘trimmed’ his hours down and is almost retired, apart from one morning a week when he steps in to help out at his old shop, now handed over to the wonderful Joy and her team, who have renamed the business: Joy Barber of Battle.
• Our sincere thanks go to PCM Estate Agents in Hastings for all their support over the past 12 months, donating £50 per month being enough to pay for 5 hours of activities for the children either at the hospice itself or in their own homes.
• Thank you to Polegate Mother’s Union group who requested a talk about Chestnut Tree House. It was a really interesting session answering so many queries, regaling stories about some of the children at the hospice, explaining how donations support the care work and how the children benefit. We look forward a to a return visit very soon to collect the donation sacks which so many people took away ready to fill with their clothes and other items destined for the shelves of our charity shops in Eastbourne, Seaford and Uckfield.
• Thank you to Mr & Mrs Hitchcock for raising an incredible £310.00 in lieu of 50^th Wedding Anniversary gifts.  What a most generous donation.
• Thank you to Mrs Paula Plant who celebrated her 70^th birthday by encouraging friends and family to donate a grand total of £1,200.00 rather than buy her gifts.
• Thank you to Patsy Squire and all the residents of Homegate House in Eastbourne for their £200.00 donation. The residents of the care home had a fabulous Jubilee celebration and chose to support Chestnut Tree House children’s hospice.
• Thank you to all the staff and customers of Alfriston Village Stores for your ongoing support. Your latest collection tin contained a most welcome £78.60, which would be enough to pay for almost 4 hours of giggles and fun activities for the children in their own homes, all provided by the ever-wonderful Care Team.  Keep up the great work of looking after the folk of Alfriston!
• Thank you Knockhatch Adventure Park for inviting us along to another special ‘Chestnut’ day, where supporters can meet the team. It’s always great to be able to answer queries and have a bit of fun as well. The park is an amazing place with so much to see and do, including their awesome wooden fort with its very own fire-breathing dragon, but also some gorgeous meerkats and other cute animals.  The scariest thing there this time was Darth Vader, along with his crew from Vaders Raiders star Wars Costume Group who kindly volunteered to help promote the charity
• Thank you to the ever-fabulous Community Fundraisers from Morrisons Eastbourne who volunteered their time to also help out at Knockhatch Adventure Park on Saturday, 17 September. Kim Hatcher-Davies is always out in the community in and around Eastbourne supporting charitable causes with their work and fundraising. We look forward to being at Morrisons Eastbourne’s up-and-coming 10^th birthday celebrations on Sunday, 9 October from 10am-1pm.  Come along and join in the fun!!
• Thank you to the 3 O’Clock Ladies Club of the St Peter and St Paul Church on Parkstone Road, Hastings who kindly invited us along for a talk.  Not only did they raise a total of £107.64 but also took away lots of donation sacks, which will be collected on Tuesday, 11^th October, clearing out their homes of books, handbags, hats, shoes and other items, all destined to stock the Chestnut Tree House charity shops with an array of goodies.