Heart radio’s ‘Have a Heart Appeal’ has raised £348,456 over the past year for children’s charity ChildLine.

Now in its third year the appeal received heavy airtime on Heart during appeal week running from 5 to 9 March and has managed to raise almost £20,000 more than last year.

Friday 9 March’s on-air fundraising event included support from celebrities such as Lionel Richie, Daniel Radcliffe, Matt Cardle and David Hasselhoff. The appeal is supported commercially by More Th>n.

In the lead up to appeal week money was raised through school disco events, school uniform days and auctions offering unusual lots with this year’s appeal theme of “Be a Kid for a Kid”.

The proceeds will go towards the recruitment, training and support of 140 new volunteer ChildLine counsellors. This year marks the 25th anniversary of ChildLine and the charity aims to raise over £17m annually to maintain and extend its services.

Proceeds from last year’s event raised money for Children’s Hospices UK.

Heart is the UK’s largest commercial radio network with listening figures of almost 1.9 million per week.