Aidan's Christmas Dinner Project
Support for families spending Christmas in hospital.
Christmas in hospital
Children and families can occasionally find themselves in hospital over the festive period, sometimes even on Christmas Day, and it can make a worrying time even worse.
They can end up missing out on the plans made for the special time of year, not seeing family or friends, and not being able to enjoy the usual Christmas food or dinner.
But this amazing project aims to help these families to enjoy at least a little festive cheer, sometimes when they least expect it.
Read on to find out more about this project and how you can support families in hospital at Christmas.
In memory of Aidan
Parents Lucy and Simon Pond set up the project in 2014 in memory of their little boy Aidan. Lucy explains more:
“My son Aidan was tragically diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder called Mitochondrial disease, aged just one. Unfortunately, there is no treatment or cure for Mitochondrial, meaning that he was a terminally ill child. Aidan passed away at the Alex on 1 March 2014.
“The dedicated team of children’s hospital nurses and doctors are amazing, and we’ll never forget the joy and warmth at Christmas. However, with the stress of the situation, we found that we were unable to share a Christmas meal together as a family.
“We hadn’t prepared ourselves with food to take to the hospital and we simply weren’t able to make the time to prepare a Christmas meal. As a result, we spoke with the head of nursing at the Alex and to Rockinghorse as the hospital’s official charity, about our experience and how it could be made better.
“Together we came up with the idea of providing hampers to parents which would be full of treats to be taken home or enjoyed at the hospital. In addition, we decided that a Christmas dinner could be provided on site on the day itself. From there, Aidan’s Christmas Dinner Project was born.”
Supporting families at Christmas since 2014
Ever since Lucy set up this in 2014, she, along with a dedicated team of helpers and volunteers, have been making sure families have some Christmas cheer, even if they are stuck in hospital.
In the days leading up to Christmas, working with Caroline Davenport Potter from Davenport Events to create the handmade contents, the team get together to pack hampers with a range of delicious treats including things like brownies, Christmas puddings and mince pies. They also contain tea bags, coffee, cafetiere’s and hand cream.
The hampers are then packed and delivered to children’s hospital settings around Sussex, including The Alex and Trevor Mann Baby Unit in Brighton, Special Care Baby Unit in Haywards Heath, and Bluefin Ward in Worthing Hospital.
Christmas Day comfort
On Christmas Day itself, volunteers go along to the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital to provide a delicious buffet, for parents with children staying in the hospital and in the Trevor Mann Baby Unit over Christmas.
There’s also enough food for the dedicated NHS staff who are working at Christmas to be able to have a nice meal.
The impact
Since 2014, hundreds of families have been given a hamper or a Christmas meal and this has often made a huge difference.
As an example one family told us, “We were taken aback when the hamper arrived. It felt like someone had seen us, seen what we were going through and silently acknowledged the way it would feel for mum and dad to be stuck in hospital on Christmas Day.
“We had been trying to keep it together for our son but couldn’t believe the generosity – made us quite emotional. The hamper gave us something exciting to open that made it feel like Christmas.
“When you’re in hospital with a sick child you deprioritise yourself so much, but the hamper was so meaningful – we suddenly felt valued and not an afterthought.”
