Support us in our work

Amazon Smile

Did you know your everyday purchases could help to save more babies lives?

We’re excited to share a great way you can donate to The Early Birth Association that won’t cost you a penny!

AmazonSmile is a website operated by Amazon with the same products, prices and shopping features. Your shopping experience stays the same, but every time you shop on AmazonSmile, Amazon automatically donates 0.5% of the purchase price of eligible products to your chosen charity.

Every donation is gratefully received and will really help us to continue the essential work we do. You can donate through JustGiving or Virgin MoneyGiving. Cheque donations can also be accepted, made out to ‘The Early Birth Association’. These can be sent C/O The EBA to: Trevor Mann Baby Unit, Royal Sussex County Hospital, Eastern Road, Brighton, BN2 5BE.

Payroll Giving (GAYE)

Payroll Giving is an opportunity for employees to give funds to a charity direct from their pay. The good thing about this is that it happens before tax is deducted. It is a simple, efficient and flexible scheme, which allows you to donate to any UK registered charity of your choice by a direct deduction from your wage. All donations given in this way are tax effective so the charity receives your donation and the tax you would have paid on this amount.

What are the benefits of Payroll Giving?

• You can give to any charity
• A regular income for the charity of your choice so they can plan for the future with confidence
• A confidential, easy and tax-efficient service
• No extra paperwork for the charity as they receive your donation and tax in one go
• A flexible scheme which allows you to change charities, alter the amount given or stop giving whenever you wish

If you wish to do this you will need to contact your Payroll/Personnel department to establish if they have facilities for GAYE/Payroll Giving (most companies do, particularly the larger ones). Once the GAYE/Payroll Giving provider has been established you will need to contact them (they usually have a website which is very helpful) to see if The Early Birth Association is set up on their listings. If we are not please email info@earlybirth.co.uk and we will contact the provider with the charity’s details. From this point you can submit your application online or paper style stating how much each month you wish to donate to The EBA. This will be deducted and recorded on your payslip. The money is then sent to the GAYE/Payroll Giving provider by your employer and deposited straight intoThe EBA’s account.

We hold many fun events throughout the year, these include charity balls, family fun days, cake sales, sponsored sporting and challenge events, fundraising dinners, music evenings, raffles, retreat days and quiz nights. We’d love you to join us at some of our events. Keep an eye on our social media and website news and events sections for what is coming up.

Our supporters also often organise their own fundraising events for us which we are very grateful for. Some examples of fundraisers that have been held are at baby’s birthday parties and christenings, sponsored walks, fundraising DJ marathons, family fun days, charity football matches, pop up shops, pub quizzes and cream tea events. If you have any ideas for a fundraising event you’d like to run we’d love to hear from you. We can provide collection tins, leaflets and balloons etc. We can also help promote your event online by sharing details on our website news section and our social media accounts. Please get in touch to discuss any ideas you have!

You can support The EBA by doing a sporting or challenge event! The only limit is your imagination or bravery! You could do a sponsored swim, walk, trek, run, bike ride, triathlon, sky-dive, abseil, or bungee jump! We often have charity places available for various sporting events throughout the year which we will advertise via our website and social media, or you can do an event that you apply for yourself and raise funds for us.  Why not get your kids involved too? We have children of our committee members and supporters run The Brighton Marathon Mini Mile every year. This year some of our committee members and their kids are also going to undertake Tough Mudder challenges! If you’d like to join us or do a sponsored sporting challenge of any type for us, please get in touch. Take a browse through the photos to see what some of our supporters have done in the past!

We have come up with a new way for you to support the vital work we do for the baby units by supporting us through your business. We’ve teamed up with small business fundraising platform Work for Good (www.workforgood.co.uk ) who make it super easy for you to donate to us through the sales of your products and services and help us keep track of your wonderful support. Donating to us through the platform also gives you the opportunity to set up a Work for Good page to publicise your giving story to your customers, clients and employees and shout about your support for us. Please support us today, set up your first pledge or make a one off donation here by setting up a small business account online and using our unique referral code of 7W187P8V. We understand when you run or work for a small business that you’re pulled in all manner of directions and we are therefore even more grateful if you’d consider supporting us through your venture and donate just by doing the work you already do.

At the start of 2020 were very excited to announce that we were successful in being selected as the Haywards Heath Golf Club chosen charity of the year! There are so many wonderful members at the club and some with direct connections to a neonatal unit, either recently or many years ago. We are looking forward to working in partnership with the Golf Club to raise even more awareness of what we do and why we do it. We thank them for their support and the opportunity provided by them to raise more vital funds for the units.

1st CENTRAL Insurance in Haywards Heath have very generously offered us so much support and fundraising since we became their extended ‘charity of the year’ in 2017.  They have hosted and taken part in many fundraising events for us, such as sponsored walks, quiz nights, and other fundraising events in their offices. Their dedicated staff have also used their artist talents to paint the parents room in PRH SCBU with a beautiful Tilly’s sunflower mural, and have also offered to assist us in the TMBU refurbishment.  1st CENTRAL also filmed on the TMBU and made us a video highlighting what we do. Over their time supporting us, 1st CENTRAL have pledged to raise a total of £40,000 which is just amazing! Thank you to everyone at 1st CENTRAL! Your support makes such a huge difference.

In November 2019, the Sussex Produce Company in Steyning  kindly agreed to have us as their charity of the month. They hosted a successful a fundraising dinner for us on 16th November – the day before World Prematurity Day. They  also donated a hamper of yummy Sussex Produce goods for us to raffle.

We have also had lots of generous support from local supermarkets, with Sainsbury’s branches in Brighton doing lots of fundraising and hosting events for us and Waitrose in Haywards Heath donating via their Community Matters programme.

You can ask your local supermarket if they can help!

A quick and easy way to raise awareness of us and raise some funds. Wear it with pride! You could have a box in your place of work, or ask if you can leave some in locations in your local community or have some at home to sell to your friends and family. Please get in touch if you’d like some.

We have received very generous donations from many groups, including Seaford Swimming Club, Shoreham Conservative Club, Friends of Bede’s Prep School,  Owls Out and About and Recycling in Lancing. We have also involved local Brownies units in fundraising for us. Over the years we have also received lots of support from the Push for Prems team who have made donations to The EBA with money they have raised to support TMBU.  We are very grateful for this support and ongoing relationship. We’d love to have you raise funds for us and raise awareness of the great work we do in your local group. We can provide collection tins and anything else you need. Please contact us if you have any ideas for things you can do in your local community.

In close collaboration with Amber from Greenscence’s Potting Shed, a massive £2,020 was raised for The EBA IN 2016 by selling grow your own ‘Tilly’s Sunflowers’ kits. Amber came up with this fantastic idea after her friend (& one of our committee members) lost her little girl, Tilly, in November 2015, & has raised over £3,300 for two different charities since 2016. Thank you Amber and congratulations on thinking of such a fabulous idea! In 2018, Amber also started selling Tilly’s Sunflowers pin badges for just £1 each.

In November 2017, Tim and Jazz who are the parents of twin boys Leo and Noah, who were cared for TMBU, purchased an EBA teddy bear and named him Trevor. They asked people to take Trevor on adventures all over the world to raise awareness and funds for the unit, with the aim of him travelling 50,000 miles! So far Trevor has been far and wide, globe trotting in Johannesburg, Portugal, Mount Kilimanjaro, skiing in Andorra and France, fishing in Florida and doing a coast to coast tour of the good old U S of A… He even got to fly in the cockpit of a plane on one of his trips! His adventures are documented on a JustGiving page.  Now we’d love you to help Trevor continue his travels and document your journey with him for us which we can add to Trevor’s Blog.

If you sponsor Trevor you are  welcome to take him on holiday, walks, marathons or whatever gets us the mileage we need (photographing him as you do). To take Trevor on an adventure whether in the UK or abroad just contact us and we will post him to you or we can deliver in the Brighton area (postage counts towards his mileage goal!)

We hope to get some fun photos of him in unusual places. Don’t worry if you just want to sponsor the bear but leave the travels up to others,

Trevor has also joined our committee members and supporters in some of our fundraising events such as the Just Walk sponsored walk, running in a Marathon, and partying the night away at one of our fundraising balls.

Please do get in touch if you’d like to take Trevor on more adventures!

We have an EBA Mascot – AKA Trevor the Ted!

We sell our EBA teddy’s like Trevor so you can have one of your own to keep. They often become a treasured and well loved soft toy for ex TMBU and SCBU babies, and precious keepsakes for mums and dads of their time on the units.  You can buy one at TMBU or PRH or please contact us if you’d like one posted to you. They are priced at £15 each + £3 postage if you’d like one delivered to you. Each postal order will also receive a free charity wristband and a letter from Trevor Ted.

We’re always looking for new supporters and committee members to join us. Whether you have a little time to spare or a lot, your skills and time will be much appreciated and best of all you’ll have fun and help a fantastic local cause.  Please get in touch to talk to us about volunteer supporter roles and opportunities.  We’re entirely run by volunteers so any time you can spare to help us out with fundraising, events, admin work, sewing items for the units or anything else needs doing, whether its a one-off or ongoing piece of work, will really help.

We’d also like to hear from you if your baby/babies are currently in, or have recently been in the Neonatal Units and you have any feedback on the things provided by The EBA whilst you were there. We always want to improve what we do to support babies, families and staff on the units so your feedback will be very valued so please do contact us.

My Very Little Sister and the Very Big Story, is a children’s book written by Alina Brett, when she was 4 years old, to help families of premature and sick babies. Alina has written the book from her perspective to reassure siblings and families going through similar experiences that they are not alone after her baby sister, Anela, was born 15 weeks prematurely in June 2019. Funds raised from the book sales also support The EBA. Visit https://www.brettbooks.co.uk/  to find out more and to buy a copy.