Dayspring Community Choir helps boost the funds of the Every Heart Matters appeal by £500

Members of the Dayspring Community Choir have helped to boost the funds of the Every Heart Matters appeal by raising £500.

Based at Christ Church, on the Moreton Hall Estate, in Bury St Edmunds, the money was raised by a series of initiatives including concerts, CDs and subscriptions.

With a membership of 80 and 50 regulars attending rehearsals at the church every Monday evening they nominated the appeal, which is being run by the My WiSH Charity which supports the West Suffolk Hospital, aimed at raising £500,000 to create a new cardiac unit at the hospital.

Musical director Barry Hart said the money was collected over the past year from some of their concerts, the sales of “A Season of Singing” and “Bring Me Sunshine” CDs, as well as from subscriptions.

The choir was launched in September 2013 to bring local people together to find fun, relaxation and friendships through singing.

The Dayspring Gospel Choir, formed in 2008 with about 20 members, provided a core group of experienced singers for the new choir when it launched.

It aims to be informal and welcoming whilst working hard to perform to a high standard and has four sections: sopranos 1 & 2, altos and baritones.

Mr Hart said: “We ask our members to give us a shortlist of the charity that they would like to support and we chose the Every Heart Matters appeal.

“We like to support local charities and we recognize that we are blessed to have the West Suffolk in our locality and a lot of our folk wanted to show support for the local hospital.

“The word ‘Community’ captures the choir’s very reason for being; it’s much more than just part of our name.”

The West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust is investing £5.2m in developing a state of the art cardiac suite that will provide quicker access to more treatments, but the £500,000 the My WiSH Charity is hoping to raise will lead to the whole unit, which is currently fragmented on different floors, being brought together in one purpose-built centre.

If you want to support the appeal go to the website www.mywishcharity.co.uk

If you would like to donate to the appeal you can do so by going to Justgiving.com/ehma or text EHMA17 £10 to 70070.

Pictured with members of the choir is Sue Smith, the fundraising manager for My WiSH.