2022 Winner
MARK and SUSAN BATES
Raising awareness and supporting sufferers through their charity, Balls to Cancer, while continuing to foster children.
Losing close family to cancer motivated Mark and Susan Bates to set up campaigning charity, Balls to Cancer.
The couple were determined to try to help male cancer sufferers and their families and raise awareness, fund research and offer respite and support to families affected.
They founded the organisation in 2011 following the death of Mark’s father, Geoff, to a brain tumour and Susan’s granddad, Peter, to throat cancer. Originally supporting men through cancer, it has grown and evolved and now supports anyone suffering from the disease. The charity has a taboo-busting ethos and uses fun and football as a way to raise funds and open up tricky conversations. The team is known for its upfront social media campaigns; designed to spread knowledge and provide information about potentially embarrassing topics.
Other initiatives include Making Memories holidays, Superhero Chemo Boxes and respite breaks at a holiday home by the sea. The charity, which celebrated its 10th anniversary last November, has also funded an education programme for teenagers, helping bust taboos around testicular cancer.
At the same time, Susan, 45, and Mark, 53, from Wolverhampton, are also foster parents, caring for more than 20 children over the past decade.
As Mark says: “We don’t just raise awareness, we offer support be it just a voice at the end of the phone, email or message or financial help, for bills, clothes or food. “We also researched things that helped or were needed for people going through chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment for cancer and after much work we created a chemotherapy support pack which we send to anyone with cancer that requests one again free of charge.
“We aim to continue to help anyone with cancer in any way that we can.”