£22,000 to help beat heart disease in city

Earlier this year, Graves Health & Sports Centre, Thorncliffe Health & Leisure Centre, and Wisewood Sports Centre all became donation points for British Heart Foundation's '˜Bag it, Beat it' project. The aim was to get local people to donate unwanted items in a BHF bag and send it into a local collection point.

Since starting the collections, all three centres have seen an influx of clothing, toys, books and gifts brought to them by local residents, keen to join the fight against heart disease in Sheffield. The total hit £22,000 this month, and still continues to grow.

Every three minutes in the UK, a family loses a loved one to heart and circulatory disease. Coronary heart disease is the UK's single biggest killer, claiming around 73,000 lives a year '“ an average of 200 lives every day. Money raised from events such as the BFD bag donations is currently helping to support over 1,000 research projects into heart disease.

The projects contract manager, Alex Greaves, said: 'We would like to thank the communities of all three facilities as, without them, this achievement would not be possible.'