Hot chocolate fund benefits Milton Keynes charity Emily's Star

Established in 2012, the charity helps families of children with life limiting and life threatening illnesses to create special moment and memories. Their time together can be short, and the charity helps the whole family to enjoy special moments.

The 15 volunteers at Emily’s Star have helped more than 2,000 families to date. It provides neonatal boxes to hospital units, which include toiletries and premature baby clothes, and is keen to do more.

Katie Elmer, who set up Emily’s Star in memory of her daughter, Emily Elizabeth, says: “This welcome donation from the GALAXY Hot Chocolate Fund will cover the cost of Preemie Milestone Cards to be donated to families at Milton Keynes Hospital Neonatal Unit. These bespoke milestone cards can be photographed with babies and feature captions including ‘I am a week old today’ and ‘Today I was able to breathe on my own’. It’s so important for families to capture important moments and memories with babies born prematurely – and for us to raise awareness of Trisomy 18, also known as Edwards Syndrome, the UK’s second most common syndrome, which remains relatively unknown.”

Michelle Frost, spokeswoman for GALAXY Hot Chocolate said: “From our research, we know that across the UK and Ireland smaller charities and community groups are struggling to make ends meet despite the efforts of a huge number of warm-hearted volunteers. Seventy per cent of charities and organisations report that 51-100% of funds come from fundraising, with a further 68% stating that finding funds has become ten times harder over the past five years*.

“The GALAXY Hot Chocolate Fund aims to give them a helping hand and hopefully inspire more people to get involved.”