A LEGO heart is set to remind visitors to Newcastle's Eldon Square of the importance of organ donation.
Starting on Valentine's Day, a specially-built heart made out of the popular toy bricks will spend a week in St Andrew's Way in the shopping centre. The idea is to raise awareness of the life-saving work taking place at Newcastle's hospitals, and especially of organ donation - and February 14 is also World Donor Day.
Then on February 21 , the man behind the LEGO sculpture, Steve Mayes of Brick This in North Shields, will hold two workshops helping people to build and take home miniature LEGO hearts. Steve has been commissioned for the project by the Newcastle Hospitals Charity - which the supports the work of teams at the Freeman and the Royal Victoria Infirmary.
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The workshops - taking place between 11am and 1pm and 2pm and 4pm on February 21 - will see 25 attendees able to take home a LEGO heart while a specialist nurse from the Northern Organ Donation Services Team will also make an appearance and highlight the importance of donating organs. Steve has previously worked with Newcastle Hospitals Charity on projects such as creating a LEGO radiotherapy machine to help poorly children understand what they will go through.
Little Grace Westwood, who received a heart transplant at the Freeman last summer, posed with Steve's incredible model heart. Though a donor heart saved her life after two years spent at the hospital, many others wait for the same gift on the Freeman's Children's Heart Unit.
After the workshops, Steve's LEGO heart will move to its new home at the Freeman Hospital. Teri Bayliss, director of Newcastle Hospitals Charity, added: “We are very excited to be working with Eldon Square for this Organ Donor Day campaign, raising awareness of the gift of organ donation as well as celebrating the incredible work that takes place right on our doorstep, in the Institute of Transplantation.
"The LEGO hearts that Steve has designed are a really fun, creative and visual medium through which we can teach the people and, in particular, the children of our community all about the life changing gift of organ donation."
Naomi Osborne, acting marketing manager at Eldon Square, said: “Newcastle Hospitals Charity plays such a crucial, but often hidden, role in supporting vital care for the region; as such, we are delighted to be partnering with them. It is truly rewarding to give the charity a temporary home, a platform, within our centre from which they can educate the community about their charity, their activities and how the public can support them."
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