Kieran Rutter Legacy Fund

“The supportwehave had means the world to us”

More than £60,000 has been raisedthrough the Kieran Rutter Legacy Fund –a fund which was set up by Kieran’s family after the 20-year-old, who lived in Leek, sadly lost hislifeafter acar crash in 2015.

Here Kieran’s parents, Steve and Alicia Rutter, write about their son and how they haveraisedsuch an amazing amount of money for charity in his memory:

From ayoung baby Kieran was awildchild and always very active withacheeky nature and stayed like that,that was him.

As he got older he would always give lots of stick and make jokes about friends but if ever there was any problems he was fiercely defensive of his close friends.

He is very much missedbyfriends and family and is regularly visited at the cemetery by many people.

We started the Legacy Fund in early 2016 so it’s been running for over five years now.

Our first Golf Day was2017 so we are onto our fourth one this year as last year’s was cancelled due to the pandemic, with this year’s being the biggest yet.

We have held many different fundraising events from sponsored walks,runs, Legacy nights at the Blue Mugge, our £1,000 draw, 80s night and individuals have also ran in events with funds coming to the fund.

The most bizarre one was theDuck Race run from the Dyers Arms. Watching grown adults cheering on plastic ducks floating down ariver was very funny but it was agreat day andfinished off with aband playing in the Dyers till late.

We have donated over £60,000 in cash or goods since we startedand while the support is still there we will continue to raise money in Kieran’s memory.

In this year’s £1,000 draw we are honouring other children of parents in our group. We are very aware that so many others are in our position so we messaged them all and theyall said they would like their children to be remembered also, so that’s what we did, and with their permission we will continue to do this with the draw.

We can’t thank people enough for thesupport we have received, it means the world to us. Every message received helps us as we continue to grieve the loss of our precious son.

We think Kieran would be very proud of the Fund, we hope so anyway, I’m sure he would.

Here are just some of the places we have donated to, we keep it local to our area: First Responders, Donna Louise, Cardiac Risk in the Young, MacMillan Cancer Care, British Heart Foundation (local branch), Dougie Mac, North Staffs Heart Committee, North Staffs Combined (nurses), MIND and three different Depts at the UHNM. We have also donated twolocal defibrillators to Pointon Park and the Meadows School plus quite afew more smallerdonations locally.

We have also been honoured to be entrusted to receivethree separate lots of funeral donations which we are so proudofand thank the families concerned. All wanted the donations to go to local funds whichwemade sure they did.

To take part in this year’s Kieran Rutter Legacy Fund£1,000 draw, information on this year’s Golf Day which will take place on July 16, and to keep up to date with other fundraising activities of the Fund, go online to: www.facebook.com/groups/1728697027365463.