Staff and customers at the family friendly pub in the heart of Shirley, operated by Chantelle Trevatt, will soon get started with their fundraising goals.

They enjoyed a fundraising frenzy last year, with a series of charity events and the team and locals are hoping to replicate that success, with a repeat of their festival Monkey Fest in the updated pub garden and another charity car wash. 

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Chantelle said: “We’re delighted to announce Heartbeat as our charity of the year. We are a very family-friendly pub that’s always looking to get the community involved and we think it’s important to do things like donate to charity.

"We’ve got a whole host of events lined up for 2024. We were so pleased with the success of Monkey Fest last year and we’re bringing it back again, so watch out for more details on that. Especially now we’ve refurbished the garden, it’s looking really good.”

All funds raised will go to Southampton based Heartbeat, a well-established charity that helps newborns, children and adults diagnosed with congenital and cardiovascular diseases through supporting the work of the Wessex Cardiac Unit based at University Hospital Southampton.

Heartbeat fundraise to provide specialised equipment, services and facilities to help patients and their relatives through their cardiac journey.

As well as offering families who have patients undergoing treatment at the University Hospital Southampton somewhere to stay in the 25 bedroom Rotary Heartbeat House.

The Brass Monkey has close ties with Heartbeat as it installed a defibrillator two years ago and some of the funds will go towards replacing the pads as they expire every few years.

Community Fundraising and Marketing Manager at Heartbeat, Tanya Harder, said: "The Brass Monkey is a real community pub with a great bunch of regulars and we know they’re all really keen to get started and to start raising money for the work we’re doing.”

The remainder of the cash raised will help fund two pilot NHS roles; a palliative care nurse and a cardiac psychological youth worker.