Sophie's Legacy: Beloved charity 'hopeful' for grant from Fareham Borough Council for new freezers
A rapidly-expanding charity that supports parents while their children are in hospital are ‘hopeful’ of securing a much-needed council grant.
Sophie’s Legacy was set up by Charlotte Fairall in January 2022, four months after the death of her 10-year-old daughter.
Sophie spent months in hospital in and out of hospital with tumours that turned out to be a rare form of cancer. During that time, the Stubbington youngster stayed positive and spent her time helping others, with a fundraising campaign in aid of charity Alice’s Ark - as well as ticking things off her bucket list, such as spending a day working in a shop and cooking alongside celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay.
She died at home in September 2021, surrounded by her family, but the charity set up in her name has made waves, helping parents of children in hospital by providing them with essentials that are often overlooked. Among the charity’s commitments are for play specialists to be with children in hospitals seven days a week, and improved training in child cancers for healthcare professionals.
Things like phone chargers, financial aid for transport and cooked meals are all offered by the charity in hospitals across the south coast. Recent figures show 5,600 frozen meals are handed out by the charity every year in Hampshire.
Now, the charity is pushing for a grant from Fareham Borough Council, which would allow them to buy new freezers to store those meals.
Charlotte said: “These new freezers would replace the existing ones we have - they are some old second-hand commercial ones that were great for starting out, but we’ve sort of outgrown them now.
“One of them starts to defrost after a few seconds of the doors being open, and they’re not exactly energy efficient either. A couple of new freezers would be a massive help.
“We order so many frozen meals every week that they desperately need to be replaced. Hopefully we can get the grant to buy them.”
The council will meet tomorrow afternoon (Wednesday, April 1) to discuss whether to issue a community fund grant of £1,576 to Sophie’s Legacy.
It comes as the charity’s operations continue to expand, with more than 60,000 families receiving aid in 2025.
Charlotte said she applied for the grant after seeing on social media that the council had leftover money for charities, which had to be dished out by the end of the budgetary year.
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“You never know if you’ll get these things unless you ask,” she added. “If you’re a charity, you have nothing to lose by applying for a grant.
“We’ve grown so much, we’re now even working with hospitals further up the country, helping to feed parents and improve the children’s menus on the wards.
“I’m just so grateful that we’ve had the support from everyone - I know we can make a fundamental difference to the whole system, but we can only do that with the help of others. People have been so generous, fundraising on our behalf, and I cannot ever thank them enough.”
Sophie’s Legacy recently hosted its annual charity ball at the Hilton in Southampton, raising an additional £60,000 in the process.