Please help us raise funds to support a charity very close to home - Keep Me Close (Derriford NICU)

My name is Megan and on the 16th of May 2026 myself, my partner Cam and 4 of our very close friends, will be taking part in a 100km continuous walk along the jurrassic coast in order to raise funds for the amazing charity Keep Me Close.

As most of you will know, due to circumstances out of our control Myself and Cameron were unable to complete the sky dive we were set too do in May of this year. We would like to thank everyone who has already donated and supported us and re assure you that your generous donations have been received by our chosen charity, Keep Me Close. We hope that you continue to support us in our journey, Thank you.

We’re proud to continue too support Keep Me Close, a Plymouth Hospital charity that provides accommodation and support for families with babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Every step we take helps parents stay close to their little ones during the toughest days.

None of us have ever done anything like this before, so it’s definitely going to test our legs (and our blisters!) — but nothing compared to the strength shown by those tiny fighters and their families.

We’re walking to keep them close — one step, one smile, and one kilometre at a time 💛

A short summary of the charity:

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Derriford hospital cares for babies from around the south west who are born prematurely or with life threatening illnesses.

Because of the nature of babies that are cared for on the unit the parents of the babies are encouraged to remain close by as, sadly, the lives of their children hang in the balance.

The unit houses as many parents as they possibly can in their on site accommodation but unfortunately there is only room for 4 sets, these rooms are generally reserved for parents who live outside of Plymouth.

The rooms share one toilet, one shower and a microwave for cooking meals.

Keep me close charity enables so many parents to create a home from home whilst they are going through the most horrendous time and the hospitals dream is to provide better accommodation and a greater number of rooms - without keep me close, this is not possible.

Now, down to our reason…

On the 19th Feb 2023 we welcomed our beautiful Remi Beau into this world via a category 1 cesarian section.

Unfortunately, Remi was born with no signs of life but thankfully, after several rounds of resuscitation, her heart started beating for itself. She was subsequently put into an induced coma, therapeutically cooled and transferred to Derriford hospital where myself and Cameron arrived the following day.

Meeting our baby girl in those circumstances was, as you can imagine, a whirlwind of emotions, so overjoyed and overpowered with the love that we felt for her but also so frightened of loosing her before her life had even begun.

We were so grateful to be placed in one of the keep me close apartments which was just a 30 second walk down the corridor to Remi, where we could spend 24 hours sat by her side and also get our heads down when we needed to.

Remi spent her first almost 2 weeks of her life in Derriford and without that apartment we really would have been lost as we were 2 hours away from home going through the scariest time of our lives.

Fast forward to now and Remi is coming up to 3 years old! She is the strongest, bravest girl on the planet - Due to her brain injury at birth she suffers with generalized epilepsy and cerebral palsy (specifically a right sided hemi-plegia) but nothing is going to stop her that’s for sure!

Without our angel nurses and doctors at Derriford hospital we truly believe our little girl wouldn’t be here today - we cannot thank them enough and therefore want to raise as much money as we can to support them.

Therefore we have decided to take on this challenge together, as it is the least we can do to show our support and gratefulness towards all the amazing staff at Derriford and also to ensure any future parents can be close to their babies at these heartbreaking times.

Any donation is hugely appreciated🤍

Thank you,

Megan, Cam, Hannah, Harry, Sam & Rose x