THHN The Story So Far

Torbay Holiday Helpers Network was first conceived after a quite by chance viewing of the Channel 4 program Secret Millionaire in May 2009. I hardly ever watch any television but I do believe that fate had a hand in my viewing of this particular program.

The program was following scrap metal merchant Gary Eastwoood from Kent travelling around the holiday town of Blackpool looking for good causes to give financial support to. Here he found a small charity called Donnas Dream House that is run by Len & Barbara Curtis. Len & Barbara tragically lost their only daughter Donna to cancer aged just 20 years old.

During Donnas 3 year battle with cancer she encountered a great many very sick young children and she was astounded by their bravery, Donna knew only too well the impact of having a sick family member had on the whole family. Donna made it her dying wish to create a magical haven for families who had sick young children to go and stay on a free holiday away from the reality of what they were facing.

After Donna passed away Len & Barbara purchased a run down hotel in the town and raised enough funds to convert it in to Donnas Dream House where they have special themed bedrooms and offer free holidays to families who have sick children, fulfilling Donnas legacy.

When secret millionaire Gary Eastwood visited the dream house they showed footage of a young boy who was taking his very last holiday with his family, as he was fighting a losing battle with cancer. Seeing the little boy and his family left me feeling absolutely saddened to my core and really did hit home with me just how lucky I was to be the father of my first healthy son Oliver. Gary went on to donate £50,000 to Len & Barbara to help further their great work and he continues to support them to this day in helping them reach their goals.

In the following days after the program I just could not stop thinking about the family and the little boy they featured staying at Donnas Dream House and what they must have gone through, you really could see just how much that holiday meant to them. It inspired me and I sat back and thought to myself how easy it would be for me being a hotel owner to be able to help families in similar positions by offering the occasional free holiday at times when our bookings would allow.

I contacted the charity NACCPO - National Alliance of Childhood Cancer Parent Organisations and asked if they would like to offer some free holidays to families with seriously ill or bereaved children staying at my family run hotel the Hotel De La Mer in Babbacombe. They were delighted with my offer and got to work in finding a family for my first free holiday offer. After that phone call again my brain started to race and I thought that maybe I could approach local tourist attractions to see if they would allow families free entry during their holidays and began to make lots of phone calls and send  lots of emails asking the question. Thankfully many were incredibly supportive and agreed to join up and help and so Torbay Holiday Helpers Network was born!

In August 2009 we had our fist family visit from the Jones family who hailed from Chester and their 16yr old daughter Hannah suffers from a brain tumour, she has had three major brain surgeries and has had to learn to walk again after suffering from a stroke following surgery. They are an incredible family and they had an incredible holiday staying here with us in Babbacombe where they had many great days out and they said they will treasure their memories of their holiday forever.

The idea of the THHN absolutely snow balled and we now have over thirty local attractions allowing visiting THHN families to have free entry in to their establishments during their holidays.

We have 25 accommodation providers offering a wide range of free holidays from half board hotel breaks, self catering, B&B, caravans and luxury holiday cottages. We now have spread out of Devon and have people offering holidays in Cornwall, The New Forest, Wales and even South France! If a family has a self catering break they will have complimentary food hampers provided from a wide range of suppliers.

Families are presented with a THHN Family Pass when they arrive which will gain them free entry in to all of our member tourist attractions, free theatre tickets, cinema tickets, beauty treatments, massages, boat trips, horse and carriage rides and free meals in many restaurants including local businesses Angels Tea Rooms, Hanbury's fish restaurant, The Royal Carvery and the Cliff Railway Café. This really is just tipping the iceberg visiting families really do have such a huge array of activities on offer to them including flying lessons, all free of charge.

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We also have our own beach hut based on Preston Sands which was very kindly donated by a local family who lost their daughter aged 3yrs old to a very rare genetic condition and the hut has been named Faiths Beach Hut after her. The beach hut has been very well used and gives families a traditional Great British family day out at the seaside.

We work with over 70 national charities and organisations including  branches of CLIC Sargent, Great Ormond Street Childrens Hospital and Rainbow Trust Childrens Charity who refer families to us for holidays and that number is constantly rising! Most weeks I have a new charity contact me asking if they can start to refer families to us. The THHN is now recognised on a national scale and has organized over 160  free holidays for  families from all across the United Kingdom who are going through turmoil. We have also helped a great many local families as well by sending them to Cornwall, Wales, New forest, Blackpool and France.

The idea of the THHN has inspired a gentleman in New Zealand to set up a network in his home country where I liaised very closely with him and I am very pleased to say that since May this year there is now a Holiday Helpers Network based in New Zealand which is growing itself at a rapid speed. We have also inspired a network to be set up in Cumbria by the amazing Alice Pyne and her family.

Since starting the THHN I have met so many incredible families and made some very special friends and I really have been privileged to meet them. Hannah Jones who was the first to benefit from a THHN holiday has raised over £120,000 for brain tumour research since her diagnosis. I really wanted to help Hannah in her fund raising so last year I organized the THHN 1st Birthday Charity Ball which was held at the Riveira Centre in Torquay. The ball was attended by 435 guests including secret millionaire Gary Eastwood and Len & Barbara Curtis from Donnas Dream House, there was 9 live acts throughout the night including a charity auction and we raised just over £15,000 to be split between Hannah's umbrella fund of the Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust and NACCPO.

Another incredible young lady I have had the pleasure of meeting is Alice Pyne, Alice is 15yrs old and is terminally ill with Hodgkins Lymphoma. Some weeks ago Alice set up a list of things she would like to do before she dies, she has spent the last four years focusing on fighting the disease she now wants to focus on making her last days as magical as possible. Alice put the list on to a blog on the internet www.alicepyne.blogspot.com/ and it went viral within 24hrs and she was thrust in to the global limelight, being featured on news channels across the world in all continents!

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Alice has fulfilled many of her wishes including meeting Take That, holding her own dog show, having a private cinema party with her friends, swimming with sharks to name just a few things. Another wish was to design an Emma Bridgewater Pottery mug for the THHN which she has now done and is on sale nationwide www.emmabridgewater.co.uk/specials/alices-12-pint-mug/invt/1spa010002/?htxt=TKuEDLkfSuoj234RJN0PY18qlxXk4H%2F2lAEmeepceqt7hqlXNrjKKpNuAQ14sjEfC2NyF9fzyqs4%0AiANlXLYInw%3D%3D. The mug is beautiful and features the THHN's beach hut as Alice absolutely loved using the beach hut when visiting the area. For every mug sold the THHN will receive £10 that will prove to be a huge help as over 1,200 mugs have been sold so far.

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Alice's main wish is to get as many people as possible to sign up to be on a bone marrow donor register and she has a meeting with the Prime Minister very soon to discuss ways in which they can reach this goal. This is a goal I have tried very hard to help Alice achieve by holding local bone marrow donor recruitment clinics in conjunction with the Anthony Nolan Trust and have encouraged over 300 local people to sign up and I plan to hold more in the near future. You can find more information on bone marrow donation by following these links and I urge you all to follow and share them:
http://www.anthonynolan.org/
http://www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/bonemarrow/

The THHN is currently going through registration with the charities commission as I would like to take our work much further by offering families travelling grants to pay for them to reach their holiday destinations by funding their fuel payments or train tickets, because sadly there have been many families who simply cannot afford the travelling costs to reach their free holiday.

The THHN would not exist or continue to grow without the support of generous business owners offering free holidays and services to families who really could use a break away from the nightmares they are living that they sadly call reality. In may instances one parent will have to quit working to look after the poorly child which has a massive financial effect on a family. THHN holidays give families something positive to focus on and is a good distraction from hospital appointments and treatments, what we offer is not going to cure any illness or change any situation but what it does do is give families precious quality family time together and memories they will treasure forever.

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