Improving the health and life chances of children with serious heart conditions
The Football Marathon is back for 2024 on Sunday 8 September!
We'd love you to sign-up a team of 5-7 players or simply donate to help raise money for serious ill heart children at Great Ormond Street Hospital and Schneider Children's Medical centre in Israel.
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Shani's Story
Shani Berman was born with a complex congenital heart defect - a large hole in her heart and no valve linking her heart to her lungs. Surgeons at Great Ormond Street Hospital implanted a tiny Gore-Tex tube into her heart where the valve should have been in what was intended to be the first of a number of open heart surgeries to normalise her heart and circulation. Then at 20 months Shani suffered from heart failure and her family was told she would not recover.
Yet, remarkably, over the next four years, Shani grew into a lively little girl, with a "magic heart". She went to school, made friends and was a happy, inspiring and joyful child.
From the time she turned 5 however, her oxygen levels depleted further, and the doctors decided to operate - tragically, Shani did not survive the complex operation.
Our Purpose
Shine For Shani was set up by Shani's family to find a way to make Shani's memory into a blessing and to raise money to help Great Ormond Street Hospital and other centers of excellence in pediatric cardiology and research help other heart children live full and happy lives.
In Autumn 2019, we reached our first target of raising over £70,000 to support a vital piece of cardiac research at Great Ormond Street Hospital Institute of Health. The research, led by Professor Tessa Compton, is looking at ways to improve the short and long-term success of heart transplants in children, by studying the effects of transplanting thymus tissue from the donor, along with the heart, to see if this helps stop the immune system attacking the transplanted tissues. We are proud to be associated with is project which has the potential to help so many people.
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We have raised over £12,000 to buy 6 vital new pain relief syringes and pumps for GOSH's Cardiac Intensive Care Unit - a place very close to our hearts as it is where Shani spent her final days. And we have provided £80,000 for an exciting state-of-the-art Holoscope for the Schneider Children’s Centre in Israel.
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The Holoscope creates a precise 3-D image (a hologram) of the patient's heart in front of the doctor in the air. It sounds like science fiction, but it is actually fact: the Holoscope is a revolutionary tool for cardiologists, enabling greater precision in diagnosis and higher survival rates for children with serious heart conditions.
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We are now in the middle of a fundraising drive to provide £85,000 to fund a new ECMO (heart and lung) machine for Great Ormond Street Hospital's Cardiac Intensive Care Unit, an amazing and lifesaving device that Shani used whilst in intensive care.
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With your help we can make this happen.
Our events...
For the second time, more than a 110 brightly dressed walkers put their best feet forward and raised over £50,000, walking 20-miles from London to Hertfordshire on 12 September, and raising money towards the Holoscope at the Schneider Children's Hospital in Israel and a new ECMO machine for the cardiac intensive care unit at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH).
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Over one hundred walkers and runners, supported by a huge team of volunteer marshals walked from Shani's hospital in Great Ormond Street, wound its way past iconic London locations and beautiful parks and little-known routes before finishing in Shani's home town, 20 miles later, in Hertfordshire, raising nearly £50,000
The heavens opened to cool the 180 players in an epic football marathon, from 9am to 9pm, featuring girls and boys aged from three to fifty-something battling for the coveted World Cup lookalike trophy, and raising over £10,000.
Whilst there were a few soggy bottoms on the pitch none could be found on the bake sale stand as they raised over £650 on their own!
Rainbow of Rhymes
Poetry Book
A poetry book designed, compiled and authored by Tammy for her Bat Mitzvah. It's packed full of beautiful poems written by Tammy and her friends and family as well as some classic favourites. A very special way to treasure the memory of our precious Shani.
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Email us at shineforshani@gmail.com for a copy or order directly from us.
Make a Donation
Donate online via our JustGiving page or via cheque or charity cheque made payable to The Shine for Shani Charitable Foundation. Contact us for more details.
You can also sign up to Amazon Smile, selecting Shine For Shani as your charity, and Amazon will donate 0.5% of whatever you buy to Shine For Shani
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Contact Us
Get in touch with Shine for Shani to discover more about our events and how to donate or get involved.
We thank you for your support.