Fundraising in 2012 – where the money went

With all our fundraisers’ help, Walk the Walk had a tremendous year! We proudly granted funds to more charities than ever before; so for a snapshot of what you have helped to achieve read all about it here.

Our Larger Projects

The Haven

Walk the Walk grants have helped The Haven continue to develop and expand their special services and more importantly make them available to more cancer patients. Their services are currently in London, Leeds and Hereford.

Maggie’s Centres

Walk the Walk was the principle funder of the successful Maggie’s Gartnavel Centre in Glasgow that opened in 2011. Since then we have committed our funding to a second Maggie’s Centre in Larbert and to help complete their funding on their last centre in Lanarkshire. With the completion of these new centres it will mean that all cancer patients in Scotland are within 20 miles of a Maggie’s, which we think is a pretty fantastic achievement!

Western General in Edinburgh

Walk the Walk has had an active part in the renovations of the breast treatment areas at the Western General in Edinburgh. Supported by NHS Lothian, our initial grant of £2 million contributed to the complete overhaul of the breast care ward, adding a much needed operating theatre that is linked directly to the ward. We are now back in the Western and helping to fund with a further £1.5 million, the redesign of the mammography and day care unit. This is the first place that prospective breast cancer patients experience, so it’s important that it creates a safe and welcome environment. We will keep you posted on the opening date!

Penny Brohn Cancer Care

Walk the Walk has been supporting Penny Brohn Cancer Care since 2000 and have granted in excess of £16.5 million, during which time we have seen the charity go from strength to strength. They offer cancer patients their very special support of complementary therapy, self help techniques, nutritional advice and much more that all works so well alongside conventional treatments. Walk the Walk helped to fund the building of the centre at Pill in Bristol to enable visitors to have treatments for free and now we are very proud to assist them in taking their Living Well courses out to reach other parts of the country. The success of this project means that many more people will benefit from their wonderful approach to living with cancer.

Breast Cancer Campaign

Last year Walk the Walk granted a further £1 million to Breast Cancer Campaign, bringing their total grants to £3 million, towards establishing the Tissue Bank. Breast Cancer Campaign funds pioneering research, which drives improvements in diagnosis, treatments and quality of life for women, and hopefully one day a cure to beat the disease. So, when the world’s leading scientists said that the biggest barrier to rapid progress in breast cancer research was a lack of access to high quality tissue, Breast Cancer Campaign acted to combat this.

Thanks to Walk the Walk and their grant of £2 million, Breast Cancer Campaign was able to successfully bring together four leading NHS Trusts and breast cancer research institutions; the Universities of Leeds, Nottingham and Dundee and Barts Cancer Institute, London, to create the UK’s first national breast cancer tissue bank.

Breakthrough Breast Cancer

Walk the Walk have been a loyal  supporter of Breakthrough Breast Cancer for many years over which time in excess of £21 million has been granted towards specific research projects.

Science has come a long way since our first meeting with Breakthrough in 1996, and we are very proud to have played our part in some of the major research landmarks, however the problem is not yet solved, and sadly by 2030 it is expected that 57,000 women a year will be told that they have breast cancer.

In 2012 Walk the Walk granted a further £2.5 million towards all our future health. This money will be spent on:

1. Treatments – to help find better treatments for all women and all types of breast cancer.
2. Prevention – to help look at how women and men can stop getting the disease in the first place.
3. Metastasis – so for those we can prevent, we can stop it spreading and therefore stop women dying from the disease.

Cancer Support in the Community….

For the past few years Walk the Walk have had a special allocation of funds specifically for smaller projects and individuals that you often don’t hear about, but they are really helping cancer patients in their local community throughout the UK.

Cancer Kin

As an organisation we have always recognised the importance of emotional and integrated cancer support, so over the past year grants have included, CancerKin to support women in East London; this area currently has the highest mortality rate for breast cancer in the UK.

Helen Rollason Cancer Charity

Helen Rollason also received a grant to support them at their three centres in the South East. Often working on the front line in hospitals, aside from emotional support they also offer complementary therapies and manual lymph drainage that make such a difference to patients. We think they are doing an amazing job and really deserve the funding.

Tenovus

A grant was made to Tenovus this year to help them buy another mobile treatment unit, this will take chemotherapy, scalp cooling and other treatments out to cancer patients living in the more rural parts of Wales.

FACT

We have also once again granted funds to FACT who offer wonderful care and support to patients in the North East.

Christie Hospital

Christie Hospital in Manchester towards their complementary therapy service and also their research into how complementary therapies can benefit patients in a clinical setting particularly during chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

So… some big stuff happening and imagine all because you and many like you have taken on some crazy challenges, worn a bra in public and just got out there and put one foot in front of another!

We love you for it… and for uniting with us against breast cancer!

Well that’s it for now… Don’t forget, for a fantastic psychedelic experience in beautiful Edinburgh, sign up for The MoonWalk Edinburgh Scotland now!

See you soon

Nina Barough CBE

Founder and Chief Executive of Walk the Walk Worldwide