In the UK someone dies every three minutes from heart and circulatory conditions. In February each year, the British Heart Foundation (BHF) raises awareness about these conditions during Heart Month. To support the campaign, the BHF tasked the nine Centres of Research Excellence from across the UK to take part in fundraising activities and Go Red! for Heart Month.
Spanning departments across the University of Oxford, a team of Oxford CRE researchers formed a fundraising committee and worked their creative magic to plan, organise and run a number of fundraising activities for the charity. With expert guidance from Alison Mackie, BHF fundraising manager for Oxfordshire and Wiltshire, the team raised an incredible £3,438 over February and March from the overall total of £15,400 across the CREs.
Events included departmental bake sales, a film viewing in celebration of International Women’s Day, a pub quiz at St James’ Tavern, Cheese and Wine evening in association with the Oxford Cheese Company, and a public engagement ‘HeART and Music’ event combining scientific imagery from Oxford CRE research with music by solo artists and classical ensembles. Artworks were printed to enable members of the public and the CRE community to purchase postcards and A4 prints in aid of the campaign.
Some events enabled the team to promote the BHF’s online RevivR tool to teach CPR within 15 minutes - to help save lives. Generous prizes were given by organisations (Bruin Café, Everybody Studio, New Ground Coffee, Nuffield Health, and Proteintech) for a raffle raising further funds for the campaign.
BHF Oxford CRE Go Red! Campaign committee
Ileana Badi, Ambre Bertrand, Ben Chapman, Susanna Cooper, Lucia Moreira, Lauren Phillips, Charalampos Sigalas, Gintare Smagurauskaite, Mary Strevens, Jenny Wang
Support
Philippa Major, Tracey Marr, Alison Mackie