TYNESIDE tycoon Graham Wylie has donated £38,500 as part of two projects to improve facilities at the trailblazing unit which saved his daughter’s life.

Graham’s daughter Kiera is awaiting her fourth – and hopefully final – operation to correct a heart condition which experts at the Freeman Hospital have been closely monitoring since she was born in December 2009.

Since then, Graham and his wife Andrea, have done everything in their power to raise awareness of the medics’ work, while also raising money for the unit’s attached charity, the Children’s Heart Unit Fund (CHUF).

And today sees the launch of a dual project spearheaded by Metro Radio’s Cash for Kids charity, which aims to create a special Sensory Room at the Gosforth hospital.

Simultaneously, the charity aims to bring in the money, supplies and volunteers needed to renovate CHUF’s accommodation set aside for parents of young heart patients, and the projects which will together cost around £75,000.

The plan is to have challenges completed by next Monday, November 14.

Close Hotel & Golf owner Mr Wylie has kick-started the projects by donating £38,000, more than half the amount needed, and he has joined Cash for Kids in calling for big-hearted people and businesses to follow his lead and pledge cash or volunteer their time to make the sensory room and accommodation overhaul a reality.