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Sporting Hero’s Lunch

Sporting Hero's Lunch. Tree of Hop

On Friday 13th October, Tree of Hope began its 25th Anniversary celebrations, with a Sporting Heroes lunch at The Spa Hotel, Tunbridge Wells. The event, hosted by Kent and England Cricket Captain Chris Cowdrey was joined by other Sporting Heroes including Olympic legend Jayne Torvill, Wales and British Lions Rugby personality John Taylor and England and British Lions hero Rob Andrew raised vital funds for Tree of Hope.

The event was extremely well attended by local companies and supporters where each Sporting Heroes hosted tables and provided a number of great stories from their respective careers.

Gill Gibb, CEO of Tree of Hope spoke the that Tree of Hope does specifically mentioning, 17 year old Kelly Turner who has a rare form of cancer and is raising £1m for a lifesaving operation in New York which is not available through the UK healthcare system and 3 year old Harmonie-Rose Allen who as a result of Meningitis is a quadruple amputee. Harmonie’s family and supporters have raised funds for a years of prosthetic limbs as she grows. Her current prosthetic s  have unicorns and rainbows on them and resemble leggings, proving to be the envy of all her friends at nursery!

After lunch Chris Cowdrey in his role of MC invited Jayne Torvill on to the stage and conducted an interview with her

To the delight of the audience,  Jayne Torvill was invited on stage at the lunch where questions were then thrown out to the audience, followed by John Taylor and Rob Andrew who appeared as a duo. They all shared some very special memories from their careers and had the audience laughing along with them.  The events silent auction, raffle and games proved very successful, and all the guests had a fabulous time which resulted in over £10,000 being raised for Tree of Hope – a fantastic start to their 25th Anniversary Celebrations.

Gill Gibb, CEO at Tree of Hope comments: “We are delighted with the support we received from everyone who attended the Sporting Heroes lunch and for helping it to be a great success. A special thank you also goes out to all our Sporting Heroes who provided the audience with some great anecdotes and made the lunch even more special. This lunch marks the start of a whole year of 25th Anniversary Celebrations and we have much more to celebrate in the coming months”.

Chris Cowdrey, Kent and England Cricket Captain comments: ““As someone living locally and the father of twin boys, I have been aware of the tremendous work Tree of Hope does to raise funds for children suffering from a disability or illness for some time. All children are incredibly special and I wanted to pledge my support in whatever way I could to help this amazing charity to continue their great work”.

See pictures for the day below.

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