Everywhere We Go! – Austria, March (Donation 89)

Charity Heroes

www.charityheroes.at/
www.facebook.com/charityheroesaustria

By Paul Smith…

The Sunshine Appeal’s 89th consecutive donation was in Vienna, Austria but this donation was like no other, so let’s tell you why.

For the first time ever, we had a conundrum that we were contacting charities, in two different countries, to say that we ‘might’ donate to them but then again, we might not – that’s the WC Play Offs for you! For the potential Austrian beneficiary, the Steering Group reviewed the remaining charities who’d been considered for the 86th donation, last September in Austria. The resulting vote decided that our nominated recipient would be Charity Heroes.

So we contacted Charity Heroes, using the same template to both them and the possible Welsh recipient, explaining who we are, why we are contacting them but with the ‘mibbes aye, mibbes no’ proviso. Understandably the reaction was a bit ‘mixed’ and initially their social media team thought it was a spam message (As is becoming the norm).

We had a video call with Marion from Charity Heroes, and we explained how the footballing side of things will decide if there is a donation or not and we found out more about them, which backed up our rationale for selecting them:

Theirs is a simple mission – they visit needy kids dressed as their favourite superhero and put a little bit of joy back in their lives! They meet all expenses, (such as travel costs and the superhero outfits) themselves and so our donation will allow them to do even more of this valuable work.

Here is what they do in their own words:
“Our heroes give magical times when children need them. They are there for children who suffer from physical or mental illnesses, who live in homes or who are currently in a particularly difficult, stressful or frightening life situation.
Our mission is to give the children hero time to give them a little more strength.”

Presentation (Tuesday 29th April 2022)

The Hotel Rathauspark Wien hosted the presentation, with everyone needing to consider the ongoing Covid rules in Vienna around the use of face coverings. Unfortunately, Marion couldn’t attend due to the dreaded positive result, but Daniela stepped in as our contact on the day.

Let’s be honest, we’re all big kids at heart and to see Batman and Mary Poppins, it brought a massive smile to our faces, so just think how the children feel when they see their hero. We even had a special appearance from McSpiderman and on his birthday, with Mark piping for both our guests and for a wee rendition of Happy Birthday for long time supporter Danny (we won’t mention the candles that would be needed for your cake!).

The presentation took place with £4,000 being donated to Charity Heroes, this is their single largest donation, which will not just fund them for the future but also allow them to expand the number of visits. The expansion also includes visiting children who’ve had to leave Ukraine and arriving in Vienna, which hopefully gives them the strength to begin to look forward to better times.

I’m sure you can agree that Charity Heroes, doing what they do, are yet another fantastic recipient of TASA’s donation.

Everywhere We Go!