A charity in County Durham that helps children and young people with complex needs is to receive over £400 from Newsquest’s Cash for Charities scheme.

Heel & Toe in Pelton, near Chester-le-Street provides free, and paid for, therapies and support children and young people living with physical/neurological disabilities.

Therapies include physiotherapy, hydrotherapy, occupational therapy, speech & language therapy and massage therapy.

The charity will now be receiving £414.10 of a £16,000 giveaway that was shared among nine charities spanning Bradford, York, Cumbria, and County Durham.

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The charity has been going since 2008 and helps children and young people from birth up to 19 years from all over the North East.

Natalie Duncan, fundraising executive for Heel & Toe, previously told The Northern Echo said: “We don’t receive any government funding so we rely on paid for services, we offer paid for as well as free services. We rely a lot on fundraising activities and grants.

“On a whole the charity needs to raise £850,000 each year and we support 220 children per week.

“Over the pandemic we lost £350,000 in revenue and we’re still making up for it now and sign ups are slow which we think is probably because of the cost-of-living so it’s really tough.”

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The charity has an interactive bubble wall panel in the sensory room which is unfortunately no longer working.

As it is a piece of equipment that is loved by the children who are helped by the charity, the team at Heel & Toe would like to be able to replace it as soon as possible. The cost to get this replaced would be £2,106 including VAT and so the money from the Cash for Charities scheme will go toward that.

Other charities in County Durham to receive cash from the grant scheme are Quinn’s Retreat, just outside Barnard Castle, and The Angel Trust in Bishop Auckland.

The Northern Echo approached Heel & Toe for comment.

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