STA LAUNCHES NEW LIFESAVING CHARITY CAMPAIGN
Building on the success of the 2024 CommUNITY STArters campaign, STA, a national educational charity dedicated to swimming and lifesaving, is expanding the initiative in 2025 with a new ‘Heart’ theme. This year, STA will be using charity funds to donate lifesaving defibrillators to UK-based leisure and aquatics charities.
CommUNITY STArters was launched in 2024 to help break down barriers within communities across the UK, fostering new and innovative ways for STA to unite and expand its support in line with its charitable objectives. Last year, the campaign saw a dozen different not-for-profit organisations benefit from STA’s £1000 charity grants; the projects have ranged from supporting families, and helping homeless-supported young people and adults who cannot afford vital learn-to-swim and water safety lessons, to organising free open water sessions to help people manage anxiety, depression and other illnesses, contributing to research into autistic swimming and facilitating events for disability swimming clubs.
In 2025, at the heart of STA’s community-led charity campaign will be the importance of defibrillators, which have been proven to save lives. Each year in the UK, over 30,000 people experience out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, with emergency services attempting to resuscitate them. Unfortunately, the survival rate is just 1 in 10. However, if a defibrillator is used within the first three to five minutes, survival rates can rise dramatically, reaching as high as 50–70%.
A defibrillator, often called a ‘defib,’ delivers a high-energy electric shock to the heart of someone in cardiac arrest. This process, known as defibrillation, is a critical step in attempting to save their life. Defibrillators may also be referred to as AEDs (automated external defibrillators) or PADs (public access defibrillators).
Although many leisure facilities already have a defibrillator on-site, which is fantastic, there are still some that do not, and there are many more aquatics-based organisations and groups who would also benefit from having access to a defibrillator.
Inspired by the story of Steve Ruffell, whose life was saved last year at his local gym thanks to the quick actions of gym owner Gareth Preston and his team using a defibrillator, STA’s 2025 Community Heart STArters campaign will be offering UK leisure and aquatics-based charities the chance to receive their own lifesaving defibrillator. The application process is open to all charitable organisations involved in grassroots swimming, water safety, and aquatics activities.
As part of the campaign’s ‘uniting communities and saving lives’ theme, STA will also require that all successful applicants register the defibrillator on The Circuit, provided by the British Heart Foundation. The Circuit maps defibrillators across the UK, connecting them directly and automatically to ambulance services so that callers can be directed to use them until the ambulance arrives.
Applications are now open via www.sta.co.uk
