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Davina McCall has been honoured by children’s charity Action Medical Research after helping to raise £500,000 to help save and change the lives of sick and disabled babies and children.
The hugely popular TV presenter has supported the UK-wide charity since she was a child, inspired by her granny Pippy, and has brought her warmth and charisma to countless fundraising events over the years.
Each year she hosts Davina’s Big Sussex Bike Ride in June, a female-friendly ride through the leafy lanes of Sussex, as well as Dine with Davina in Hampshire in the autumn – and these two events have now raised an impressive half a million pounds.
“Even though she’s one of the UK’s busiest and most loved personalities, Davina has continued the family tradition after she was introduced to our work at the age of nine and helped us to continue our fight for little lives,” says Jenny Edwards, Director of Fundraising at Action Medical Research.
“Dine with Davina, which is now in its tenth year, has raised £240,000 over the past decade while her Big Sussex Bike Ride has brought in £260,000. This is an amazing achievement and a huge contribution to our work funding ground-breaking medical research across the UK… thank you Davina!”
Her Dine with Davina event celebrated its tenth anniversary on Friday, 11 November, at the Hilton at The Ageas Bowl in Southampton and raised an impressive £38,000; the evening also included a live performance from singer Tony Hadley, who entertained the audience with songs from his 23-year career.
For more than 60 years Action Medical Research has been saving and changing children’s lives and has spent more than £115 million funding medical breakthroughs, including helping to introduce the first polio vaccines in the UK, discovering the importance of taking folic acid before and during pregnancy to prevent spina bifida, developing the use of ultrasound in pregnancy and testing the rubella vaccine.
The charity is currently funding research into conditions including prematurity, stillbirth, epilepsy, meningitis, cerebral palsy, brain cancer and some rare and distressing conditions.
For more information on Action Medical Research, please visit action.org.uk/DineWithDavina
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To download high-res images of Davina, please click on the links below (PLEASE CREDIT LEE COLLIER PHOTOGRAPHY):
Caption: (from left) Action Medical Research's David Graham, Katia King and Sarah Stevenson, Davina McCall, and Alice Lisher and Paula Ray, also from the charity
https://www.action.org.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/press/davina_and_action_staff.jpg
Caption: Sarah Stevenson (left) and Alice Lisher (right) from Action Medical Research with Davina McCall
https://www.action.org.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/press/davina_with_sarah_and_alice_1.jpg
Davina McCall on her sixth annual bike ride in June 2016
https://www.action.org.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/press/davina_completes_the_ride.jpg
https://www.action.org.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/press/davina_-_approved_for_press_use_4.jpg
NOTES TO EDITORS:
For more information on Action Medical Research, please contact Ellie Evans, Fundraising Communications Officer, on:
T 01403 327480
Follow us on Twitter at @actionmedres and @amr_events
Like our Facebook page at facebook.com/actionmedres
Follow us at pinterest/actionmedres
Action Medical Research is a leading UK-wide charity saving and changing children’s lives through medical research. For more than 60 years we’ve helped pioneer ways to prevent disease and develop treatments benefiting millions of people. Our research has helped to beat polio in the UK, develop ultrasound, fight meningitis and prevent stillbirths. But we urgently need to develop more new treatments and cures for sick babies and children and we can’t do it without you.
Join our fight for little lives today.
Charity reg. nos 208701 and SC039284.