Life-saving donation helps the beat go on at stadium
The new mascot of a Sunderland charity is set to take to the pitch at the Stadium of Light tomorrow as it donates a live-saving defibrillator to the club.
When the half-time whistle blows on the Sunderland v Portsmouth match, Miss Beats, the new mascot of North East heart charity Red Sky Foundation, will make her way onto the hallowed turf.
And she will be joined not only by 10-year-old Phoebe Rumney, from Houghton, who won the region-wide competition to name her, but also by the Foundation’s founder Sergio Petrucci, who will donate a life-saving defibrillator to the club.
Since its launch in 2016, Red Sky Foundation has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds to help purchase life-saving equipment for cardiologists to treat patients at the children’s heart unit at Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital, Sunderland Royal’s neonatal ward and James Cook Hospital at Teesside.
Sergio, who founded the charity with wife Emma after their daughter Luna was born with acute heart problems, said he is excited to be handing it over.
He said: “I’m a Sunderland fan through and through and the chance to stand on the pitch at halftime is a dream come true. But it’s the reason behind it that is really important and that is to give the city another defibrillator, because these machines save lives.”
In the last 18 months, the charity has also placed more than 80 defibrillators at schools and public places, including 23 to help save patients on the Covid wards at Sunderland Royal Hospital, as well as showing thousands
of children and adults how to perform CPR and use the lifesaving devices.
The machine the Foundation is gifting to the Stadium of Light will be housed on the outside wall of the club’s ticket office and will be available
to members of the public should it be needed to rescue someone in cardiac arrest nearby.
Fans at the game will be given the chance to support Red Sky Foundation with a fundraising text campaign, set up to help the charity provide even more defibrillators across the region, by texting the word RED to 70470 to donate £2 per month.
For more information about the charity, visit www. redskyfoundation.com