Over the Wall, the children’s charity founded by the late Oscar winning Hollywood actor, Paul Newman, today announced that it has been awarded a three-year grant worth £865,000 from the Kentown Wizard Foundation.

The grant will be used to transform and expand the services that Over The Wall provides, enabling the charity to double the number of children and families it serves in the UK. It will also allow the charity to expand its reach by targeting and working with various other children's charities, providing residential camps for these organisations, and the children they support.

Since 1999, Over the Wall has provided free of charge residential activity camps throughout the UK for children living with serious health challenges, their siblings and families. In recent years the charity has seen exponential growth and has recently been awarded an Outstanding grade from Ofsted for the quality, safety and transformative nature of its services. This year the charity has run 13 different camps throughout the UK serving over 660 children and family members.

Kevin Mathieson, CEO of Over the Wall, said: “The wonderful support from the Kentown Wizard Foundation will allow us to grow our charity so we can run many more additional camps and provide the opportunity to other UK children’s charities to use these camps for their client groups, at less than a third of their full cost. Now, our aim is to at least double our service provision by 2021.”

The Kentown Wizard Foundation, an organisation dedicated to helping children and young adults living with a serious illness or disability, was set up by the entrepreneur and philanthropist, Ken Townsley, who has donated or pledged in the region of £100 million to the Foundation since its launch in 2015.

Margaret Ingram, Chief Executive of the Kentown Wizard Foundation, said: “Over The Wall’s residential camps have already had a huge impact on the children and families affected by serious illness. We are delighted to be able to facilitate its expansion and broaden its reach, allowing it to work with other important charities. This will allow so many more children to experience the wonder of Over The Wall’s residential camps.”

www.otw.org.uk