A nurse whose husband’s sudden death eight years ago prompted her to start raising funds for charity is now preparing to help hungry children — here and in Africa.

Gaynell Hayward’s firefighter husband John died of a massive heart attack aged 44 on May 30, 1999. Since then the former Nurse of the Year, from Southampton, has raised thousands of dollars for Bermuda Heart Foundation by running a half-marathon and holding charity golf tournaments.

Last year, with the help of Bermuda Nurses’ Association, the 50-year-old raised $23,000 for needy children in Niger. Now the mother-of-two and grandmother-of-one has turned her attention to hungry youngsters closer to home.

This year she — again backed by the association — is hoping to top last year’s amount in aid of two projects: a school feeding programme in Bermuda and a community orphanage opened in memory of her late husband in Kenya.

The feeding programme was set up four years ago by volunteers from Southampton Seventh-Day Adventist Church after reports of children attending school without breakfast.

It now provides breakfasts and lunches for youngsters at several schools in the West End and St. David’s at a cost of between $1,500 and $1,800 a month. The scheme, which is thought to have raised pupil attainment levels, is paid for by the church and fundraising efforts.

Correne Dummett, who co-ordinates the provision of meals, said there were always more hungry children than budgeted for at the start of the year.

“You think of everybody here as being very well off,” she said. “We don’t think there is poverty here but I have really learnt a lot. If we just help one child the whole thing is worthwhile.”

The Kenyan project — named the Hayward Community Orphanage — was launched in 2000 by Tabitha Osiany to help 200 children whose parents died of AIDS. It now cares for more than 800 orphans and needs cash to educate, feed and provide medication for them and train health workers.

Ms Osiany trained as a nurse in Jamaica with Mrs. Hayward in the 1970s and became good friends with her and her husband. “She was really very fond of him,” said Mrs. Hayward, programme manager of the women’s clinic at the Department of Health.

“When he died she wanted to do something in his memory.

“He was a very low-key person. I think he’d be more embarrassed than proud to know that this had his name. Even in terms of the fundraising he would have said ‘honey, all that fuss is not necessary’. But I see the need to do it.”

This year’s fundraising drive will be launched in May, when it is both international Nurses’ Week (May 6 to 13) and AIDS Awareness Month.

The association is offering to hold talks at schools on the feeding programme and orphanage and students are being asked to pay two dollars to wear red T-shirts to school on May 25 to symbolise the fight against AIDS and HIV.

A charity golf tournament will be held at Belmont on June 10 and Mrs. Hayward hopes businesses will support this year’s drive.

She said: “I’ve always had a passion for children because I feel that they are our most valuable resource and we need to provide for their needs so that they can be nurtured and grow up to contribute to our society.”

To make a donation call Mrs. Hayward on 332-8931 or email gaynell@ibl.bm or call JoAnne Armstrong on 238-8105 or email jo@northrock.bm.