A mother turns the tragic loss of her son after he got a cold and died into something positive: Harrys Promise.

Express & Star

A Sedgley lady has founded charity: Harrys Promise, in tribute to her son Harry who passed away. We catch up with her as she donates some suitcases to the Sandwell Childrens Trust, and find out what the charity is all about.

Transcript

00:00Hello there, my name is Felicity Kennedy. Back in 2023, in November, sadly my son Harry

00:07passed away. He was trying to be a social worker. He'd got such a love of passion of

00:11working with children and he deserves his name to carry on. He'd written a poem called

00:15Harry's Promise and we've taken Harry's Promise so he could become that social worker he wanted

00:19to be. So we set up the charity in February of 2024 and we've now been going for a whole

00:29year and we want to help children within the social care sector to help them thrive

00:33and grow and to reach their full potential. And our first initiative was to set up the

00:38Suitcase Appeal where we fundraise and we buy suitcases for children who are moving

00:43from placement to placement, whether that be in emergency foster care, emergency placement

00:48or just for respite. Sadly some children move from placement and they don't have a suitcase

00:52to carry their belongings in. And if you can imagine what it would be like to put your

00:56things in a black bag or a carrier bag. You've lost your identity, your self-esteem drops.

01:01So here we've donated two suitcases to Stalmont Children's Trust to help children. We've also

01:07reached out to the 14 local authorities in the West Midlands and hopefully we're working

01:11in partnership with them. Going forward we want to carry on building these relations

01:17and links we have to provide suitcases but also to provide experiences where children

01:22can learn to live life again because they've had the hardest start in life and that shouldn't

01:26be what children have. So we'll be building these links. We also want to help children

01:30who are 16 to 25 years of age. Once we've got a blueprint down here in the West Midlands

01:35we'd like to take this up to Hull because that's where Harry studied at Hull University.

01:39And then we'd like to go off across the rest of the country supporting not just children

01:43but also social workers. How can we get more children and adults to become social workers?

01:48How can we train social workers? And just how can we make this world a better place

01:52when sometimes children don't have the greatest start in life. Thank you for supporting Harry's promise.

01:57So tell us a little bit more about this man then, this Harry.

02:00So Harry is my third child. He has middle child syndrome. He's never loved enough, never cared for

02:08but in reality he gets most of the attention all the time. He's a home bird. And when in

02:142022 he went to Hull University it was quite hard seeing him go but Harry flourished.

02:19He was the glue to his cohort. He kept everyone together and everybody knew who Harry was.

02:24If someone was sitting on the row he would go and sit with them. He was the most amazing

02:28person ever. He started planning something. He was on the front line going to assess families

02:33and children to see how they were and who he could support. And sadly Harry got a cold

02:39and this cold was a virus and it broke off and it got to his heart and sadly Harry went

02:44into cardiac arrest where he was down for 15 minutes and the doctors and nurses worked

02:49so hard they got Harry's heart beat back and we were granted a week, a special week

02:54where we got to love Harry and hold him and tell him how much he was loved.

02:57And sadly Harry did pass away because his brain injury was so catastrophic he couldn't

03:02recover from that. But parts of Harry walk on. He donated his two kidneys and his liver.

03:08So Harry does walk on but Harry deserved to have his name told and shared because he would

03:13have made changes to social work. So Harry's promise came about because of that tragic

03:17loss we have and we're still dealing with that today. Grief is one of the loneliest

03:21paths you ever walk and to have to bury a child is one of the saddest things you have

03:25to do and this is something that I survive each day but through Harry's strength and

03:31love we carry on and we want to make the world a better place.

03:35And for that to happen from just a cold starting, that must be quite a rare thing.

03:41It was, yeah. It was. Harry had had the most amazing weekend. He'd just met up with his

03:47boyfriend who'd just started seeing and sadly that tragic event happened but Harry passed

03:54away loved. He passed away with family and friends. I remember the night before Harry

04:00was going to go down for surgery to donate his organs. As a family we sat with him, his

04:04brothers and his sisters and his aunt and we played Harry's music and we were singing

04:08Christmas songs and holding him and loving him and the nurse sat there with us. It was

04:12such a beautiful memory that we will cherish forever.

04:17Hi, my name's Stephen Gaultney. I'm Director of Operations at Samwell Children's Trust.

04:21It's great to be working with Felicity in relation to Harry's promise charity. It's

04:29a charity which is brilliant in the fact that it's working with our children, it's

04:33supporting our children we care for. Particularly, sometimes our children have to move, move

04:39homes in emergencies and quite often they don't have their suitcases often to move in

04:45with kind of black bags, etc, etc. The charity provides suitcases which provides to build

04:53their identities and these suitcases and the charity working together will be a massive

04:59support for our children.

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