Youngsters at the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital will have access to five newly refurbished rooms thanks to the generosity of a north-east metal recycling company.
After reading in the Press and Journal about the Archie Foundation’s fundraising efforts to renovate older spaces at the hospital, the John Lawrie Group decided to sponsor an upgrade.
But after a tour of the premises to see all of the good work being done by Archie, the company decided improving just one room would not be enough.
The Tullos-based firm has now given the charity £25,000 to fully renovate five rooms in the hospital’s paediatric assessment unit (PAU), where children who have attended A&E are kept under observation for 24 hours.
The John Lawrie Group’s financial director, Charlie Parker, said: “We were sitting in a board meeting in December considering making a charitable contribution to some local charities, and one of the directors had opened the Press and Journal that day and saw an article about Archie and suggested it to the rest of us.
“We thought it was a great idea because Archie is a charity pretty close to everybody’s hearts. If you have kids you end up at the children’s hospital at some point or another, so it just felt appropriate.
“We had a tour around the hospital and the first thing we came to was the paediatric assessment unit. It just so happened that the cost of the five rooms came up to the sum of money we were looking to donate, £25,000 or £5,000 per room.”
Cassie Thompson, Archie director of fundraising, said: “It was totally unexpected and a wonderful surprise. We showed them the rooms in the paediatric assessment unit as an example of what the refurbishment entailed.
“Within a matter of days they rang us and offered this wonderful support for all five rooms in PAU so that we could definitely complete their refurbishment this year.
“It will make such a difference to be then able to show prospective donors the completed rooms.
“This kind gesture will help speed up fundraising for all the other children’s rooms in the hospital and all the children and their families will benefit. We are hugely grateful to the John Lawrie Group for this support.”