New recruit has heart to help grow children’s charity

A new recruit has been taken on to help manage and extend the reach of popular Gloucestershire children’s charity Heart Heroes, which supports children with congenital heart conditions and their families.

George Angell has been appointed charity manager, and his role will include day-to-day operational management, increasing engagement with local businesses, and ultimately helping to grow the organisation so it can support even more families.

Heart Heroes founder Kelly Cornish will remain as involved as ever, as George’s appointment will enable her to spend more time with, and help, the families.

George has been working in education for more than a decade, in a number of positions. For several years, he was commercial manager at Sir Thomas Rich’s School, Gloucester, where his role included corporate fundraising. Following this, he spent just under two years at Bettridge, a special needs school in Cheltenham, as office manager.

George said: “Working at Bettridge was an amazing experience. I am so glad I had that time in the special needs sector. I think this, and the experience of my commercial work, are highly relevant coming into this role at Heart Heroes.”

“I really want to help Kelly and the team grow the charity so we can reach even more families and one way we can do this is by engaging more with the local business community. It’s all about accessing more resources to help more people.

“It’s a great opportunity at this point in my life and career and I hope I will be able to add value to this fantastic charity. Seeing first-hand how much benefit the activities can bring the children makes you realise it is much more than just a job.”

Heart Heroes is now in its fifth year, and helps families and children across the South, South West, Midlands and Wales, through its regional hubs. It is well supported across the Gloucestershire community, and was recently given a £500 award from Rotary in Gloucester.

Currently, Heart Heroes is working on a major project to renovate an empty building on the site of Willow Primary School, Gloucester. The charity has been handed keys to the former caretaker’s bungalow, which is owned by Gloucestershire County Council and SAND Academies Trust. Heart Heroes is being given free use of the building for an initial period of 10 years, but the venue needs modernising and repurposing as a central hub for the charity, and as a community space.

George said the project – the Big Heart Build – was going well, and the external area had been landscaped, with an ambition to use it as a forest school facility.

A group of volunteers carried out the work. Plans for the building renovations are with Gloucester City Council and, once finalised, work will get underway. Again, generous local tradespeople and businesses will be giving up their time and resources.

He added: “We are very excited about the whole project. For example, with the forest school we can run sessions for our own heart children, but also hope to extend it to the wider community and local schools. The idea is to make the building a real community space.”

For more information about Heart Heroes, or to offer help for the Big Heart Build, visit the Heart Heroes website.