Thank you for visiting Team Croft's fundraising page.  Team Croft consists of Trudie Loveridge, Simon Loveridge, Iain Barker, Lorna Perkins, Jude Macdonald, Lisa Miksch, Mark Holden, Mandy Zyda, Harry Roberts, Gordon Pope, Angie Hutsby, Nick Briggs and Kevin McFall.  Team Croft would like to thank Warwick Sports for their generosity in donating the team running vests.

Donating through this site is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to sponsor us: Birmingham Children's Hospital Charities will receive your money faster and, if you are a UK taxpayer, an extra 28% in tax will be added to your gift at no cost to you.

Team Croft has run the Shakespeare Half-Marathon in support of the Birmingham Children's Hospital Charities!!  Well done to the whole team.  You can still donate through this website.  All money raised will be directed to the Renal Ward, Ward 14.  This charity was chosen by Team Croft at the request of a Croft parent.  This is her story:

"No one ever expects to be told on a glorious summer's evening that their seemingly healthy five year old daughter is not going to pull through the night. Yet that is what happened to my husband and I over 2 years ago when our daughter, Ellie, was fighting for her life in Birmingham's Childrens' Hospital, and we had no knowledge or understanding how or why we had got to this place. Ellie pulled through, was diagnosed with kidney failure and our lives were changed forever.

 We spent 8 weeks on Ward 14 the Renal Unit, which became our temporary home, whilst we were trained to do home dialysis until a kidney transplant became available. Ward 14 is a wonderful and horrific place, in equal measures. On a daily basis, we witnessed poverty, sickness (sometimes a whole family of sick children where kidney disease was genetic), desperate circumstances, over-worked nurses and doctors, but also compassion, kindness, incredible expertise and patience. Ellie, we felt, at all times was given the very best of care, but it was a grim time for all. Because we spent so long in the hospital we got to know the Ward very well. It was shabby with very little natural light and few facilities. The children's playroom is tiny and again there is no natural light (I was amazed recently spending a few nights in Warwick Hospital with my baby son, to see how amazing the facilities were compared to Ward 14, especially amazed by the large, airy and well stocked playroom). The parent’s room on Ward 14 tells the same sorry story, and yet these are parents who suffer horrendously and are in most need of a light and a pleasant room.

 Despite the privations, Ward 14 is a happy place and the children wonderful in spirit, even those who have to translate for their parents who don't speak English (there is a very large proportion of Asian families at BCH, many of the women and mothers are brought over here with very little English--teaching these mothers how to put their child on a home dialysis machine must be a nightmare--often the children suffer terribly and because of the language problem have to go on Haemodialysis--a very different and often painful procedure to home dialysis).

 Ward 14 have plans to move to a new building and any funds than can be raised are, of course, most welcome. There are other streams for fund raising such as kidney research. "

BCH has confirmed that all money raised through this website will go to Ward 14.