Calon Hearts (originally Welsh Hearts) was founded by Sharon Owen over 12 years ago. Since then, despite some setbacks, the charity has gone from strength to strength, and we are now recognised as the leading heart charity for Wales.
Our story goes back to Sharon’s childhood. Following a routine check-up, aged just 11, she was diagnosed with a mitral heart prolapse, a type of heart valve disease that affects the valve between the left heart chambers. In the following years, having lost close family members and friends to heart disease, she was inspired to set up a heart charity that gives something back to Wales and its people.
Sharon says: “To set the wheels in motion, I went on two fundraising treks: first to the Great Wall of China and then to climb Macchu Piccu in Peru. It was hard work, but I was determined to get the charity off the ground, and that meant putting my heart and soul into it.”
Fast-forward to 2020 and the Covid pandemic hit. Like many other small enterprises across the country, as a charity we suffered. Without being able to fundraise face-to-face or hold community events – and with no government funding to fall back on – we struggled to stay afloat.
But as lockdown eased, and the restrictions lifted, we re-evaluated and decided to re-launch proudly as Calon Hearts. Despite the knockbacks, the charity continues to grow, and since the pandemic, our small team of dedicated staff has worked hard to put Calon Hearts firmly back in its place as the leading heart charity for Wales
Sharon continues: “Since relaunching the charity, I have realised the vital importance of heart screening, particularly for young people who play sport for their school, college or communities. We are all, sadly, only too aware of the young sports players we continually lose to undiagnosed heart conditions and who, had they been screened, might still be alive today. I continue to campaign for the Welsh Government to introduce screening as a routine option for young people, as well as making it more readily available for older age groups, as is the case in other countries. I will not give up the fight until a heart screening programme is widely available.”
Thanks to a Loteri Cymru grant, we were able to launch our long-awaited mobile heart screening initiative, and we now run sessions across Wales most weekends. This includes free heart screening for 16-25yrs as well as subsidised heart screening for older ages. This has proved very popular, and we are fully booked every weekend.
We’re also passionate about training people to become qualified CPR practitioners and confident defibrillator users, so that they’re equipped to deal with an emergency which leads to saving a life.
To date, we have placed over 34,700 defibrillators in communities across Wales, trained over 136,500 people in CPR and screened over 25,000 hearts for possible life-threatening conditions.
We want to take our initiatives further afield into other parts of the UK but this means we have to step up our fundraising to support this.
There are many ways you can help us achieve our goal and make a difference: you can support us as an individual with a donation, you can help us with our community fundraising programme or, if you’re a business, how about becoming an official Calon Hearts sponsor?
Why not head over to our fundraising page to see how you can get involved? We’d love to hear from you!