Worthing Hospital Children’s Unit received a late christmas present in January when members of the Ashington Festival team turned up to present them with a bundle of tablet PCs.
The festival team had been made aware of the need for the machines at the hospital to use as a distraction tool for children undergoing uncomfortable and unfamiliar procedures such as blood tests and were only too happy to provide them.
For their part the hospital passed on a huge thank you to all the people of Ashington who support the festival and make things like this possible. The ward staff were keen to get the iPad and Meep tablets into action straight away and warned that all 3 machines will be in for a busy time !
Ashington Festival has been running for over 15 years now and always seeks to give it’s profits back to the local community in the form of grants to local clubs and charities.
This year the festival had already provided grants to the Tiny Tots group for play equipment, to the wardens for equipment to set up the lunch and bingo clubs, to the community centre for new seating and to the horticultural society for new banners but the chance to make life a little more comfortable for these kids was too tempting to pass up !
This year the festival will try something a little different as we choose a partner charity to work with and details of this plus the rest of the day will be regularly updated on www.ashingtonfestival.co.uk. Don’t worry though we intend to ensure our grants will still be available to all village groups too.
The photo shows Ashington Festival team members handing over the new kit to nursing staff and patients at Worthing Hospital. Patients Lilia and Ashley were the first to get their hands on the little computers.