Evelina VIPs

Every year staff from the Evelina fundraise to take the Very Important Penguin (VIPs) sports team to the National Transplant Games.

Named after the transplant clinic (situated in the penguin zone on arctic floor of the hospital) the VIPs, who have all received a life saving kidney transplant, get the chance to demonstrate their return to fitness and celebrate life, while showing that organ donation can have a really positive outcome.

In 2008 the team triumphed at the National Games, winning Best Kidney Team and jointly winning the overall Best Children's Team (sharing the award with Birmingham). The last time this award came to London was 1994.

Competing in the Games costs, on average, £600 per child, and around £25,000 in total. The team are supported by the Evelina Appeal and the Kidney Patients' Association, but still need to raise £10,000 each year to subsidise the cost of travelling and taking part for families who already carry the extra financial burden that having a chronically ill child can have.

To cover costs, staff, patients and their families take part in a number of sponsored challenges throughout the year, ranging from the annual penguin walk and cake sales to 10k fun runs and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

You can sponsor these events and support the team by visiting Justgiving to make a donation.

Paediatric Transplant Clinical Nurse Specialist Grainne Walsh, who regularly wears a giant penguin suit to sponsored events said: "We want each child to be supported and encouraged to reach their potential in life, particularly after overcoming obstacles such as serious and long term illness, multiple hospital admissions and operations, and feel the transplant games helps them toward this goal."