Company Giving
Christmas Wishes
Getting children back to being children is the only thing on our wish list this Christmas. Will your company partner with us and help make our Christmas wish come true?
Christmas is such an important time for children. Of course, the presents are lovely, but more than that, it’s about the love and warmth and togetherness that comes with the season.
Just think of that sense of excitement and anticipation that a child feels when they shake that strangely shaped gift under the tree. Or the joy of singing their favourite Christmas songs. Or the delighted look on the face of a loved one, when the child hands them the card they worked so hard to make and colour in all by themselves.
For children spending the festive season in hospital, however, it’s a very different experience — in unfamiliar surroundings, far from the comfort of home, lying awake in a strange bed and feeling the worry that comes along with illness.
With a gift to our Christmas Wish campaign, though, your company can go a long way to changing all that. Your generosity can support our amazing front-line staff as they go about their work of looking after the young patients in the care of Children’s Health Ireland.
Will you make our Christmas Wish come true with a kind gift today?
Christmas Wishes
When your company buys a Christmas Wish from Children’s Health Foundation, vital funds are raised for sick children in Children’s Health Ireland at Crumlin, Temple Street, Tallaght and Connolly.
Below is an example of what you will get in appreciation of your generous gift.
Compassionate Wish €10,000
€10,000 could help support vital research which helps find cures and safer treatment for childhood cancers.
To reward your generosity, your company will receive:
- Top logo billing in our Sunday Times feature advert
- Your logo will be featured on a present under a Christmas Tree in one of the Children’s Health Ireland hospitals
- Feature on our website highlighting your company’s generosity
- Thank you graphic for your social media
- Christmas Wishes email signature
Generous Wish €5,000
€5,000 could help fund vital equipment, such as a cardiac monitor which will help the Cardiac Team continue to keep little hearts beating.
To reward your generosity, your company will receive:
- Premium logo billing in our Sunday Times feature advert
- Your logo will be featured on a present under a Christmas Tree in one of the Children’s Health Ireland hospitals
- Feature on our website highlighting your company’s generosity
- Thank you graphic for your social media
- Christmas Wishes email signature
- Christmas Wishes printable poster
Caring Wish €2,500
€2,500 could help support wellbeing initiatives for our healthcare heroes in CHI hospitals and urgent care centres.
To reward your generosity, your company will receive:
- Listing in our Sunday Times feature
- Your logo will be featured on a decoration on a Christmas Tree in one of the Children’s Health Ireland hospitals
- Feature on our website highlighting your company’s generosity
- Christmas Wishes email signature
- Christmas Wishes printable poster
Kind Wish €1,000
€1,000 could help fund a vital medical scope for CHI Outpatient Departments.
To reward your generosity, your company will receive:
- Feature on our website highlighting your company’s generosity
- Christmas Wishes email signature
- Christmas Wishes printable poster
River’s Story
My son River was born a healthy child. He was our third child, and my husband and I would call him our little minx. He was always up to mischief, full of energy, bounding around the place. He’s always loved the outdoors — running around with the dogs or collecting eggs from our chickens. That was him for the first three years of his life.
Things started to change around the time he started pre-school. I picked him up one day, last September, and he had a seizure in the back seat of the car. It was all very scary — we called an ambulance and he spent about a week in hospital, eventually being diagnosed with epilepsy.
But despite the diagnosis and the medication, his seizures kept coming. They were more and more frequent. Then came other symptoms — a twitch in his right leg, problems walking, loss of speech, difficulty recognizing me and his dad. We began to suspect it was more than just epilepsy.
River kept getting worse and eventually he was transferred to Temple Street — he had six seizures in the back of the ambulance on the way there. Once we arrived, the team examined him more closely and they were able to diagnose him with a rare brain condition called Rasmussen’s encephalitis.
We were glad to have a diagnosis, but dismayed to learn there was no cure for the condition. The only available treatment was brain surgery — removing the affected half of River’s brain.
My husband and I did all the research we could. We were willing to take River to China or Texas — we’d have taken him anywhere in the world to get him treatment for Rasmussen’s but everything brought us back to Temple Street. It just so happened that we had the best of the best, right here on our doorstep.
I just knew as soon as we were in the door of Temple Street everything was going to be OK — even though obviously it wasn’t OK, our child was really, really sick. There’s just a feeling up there, everybody is just so parent-centric and then this team was formed around River. It was ‘OK there’s ten people here in this room and we are all Team River.’
The surgery sounded huge but it wasn’t a hard decision to make, to go ahead with it. River’s quality of life was deteriorating — at times he was having seizures every three minutes — so we knew it was the right thing to do.
River’s brain surgery lasted 11 or 12 hours, and afterwards we knew that the hard work was just beginning. His recovery was a long process, but every few days he’d turn a little corner, or he might say a few words. He might recognise us or have a joke with his dad. Over a period of weeks the right half of his brain began taking over. It was absolutely incredible.
I have no words for the staff and the care at Temple Street — the management and the leadership and everything we experienced on that ward in particular. I always felt I could go out into the corridor and say “I’m so sorry to bother you…” Nothing was ever a bother. Even after we left, I knew if anything happened we could just go back to Temple Street and everything would be OK again.
River loved the playroom — where he could play with water, or mess around with sand. That was his happy place. Not only did it give him a bit of normality, it gave us as parents a break. He also loved the music therapy with Lyndsey, who made a huge effort to learn his favourite songs! At Christmas they decorated the halls and brought Santa and the elves in to visit the children. It was just so special.
Today, he’s making a strong recovery. He’s getting very close to being able to walk again. We think by Christmas we’ll have him back walking. His speech has come along immensely and he still has the most beautiful minxy personality he had pre-surgery. He’s full of fun. He loves a joke, he’s back to joking with his Dad again. They have a great relationship. This Christmas, we’re not asking for a whole lot, except for time at home together.
Before River got sick, I’d hear of fundraising for Children’s Health Foundation and wouldn’t really understand where the money went. But when you’re in Temple Street you see the physical things that make a difference to River’s journey — there are so many things, from the playroom to the parents accommodation, to the CT scanner to the practical, things that River made use of.
That team in Children’s Health Ireland at Temple Street kept us together. People would say to us “I just don’t know how you do it” and I would say, we’re being propped up here, we’re being carried along and we definitely could not have done it without all the support.
– Susan, River’s Mam.
