CHILDREN across the area helped to raise nearly £300 for Great Ormond Street Hospital by joining a special party dressed as their favourite superhero.

The Superhero Extravaganza Charity Zoom Party, run by Zara Mizen to celebrate the second anniversary of Koala Kids Parties, increased the total she has raised for the hospital to more than £1,000.

Zara appeared as Spider Girl and there were several girls at the party in similar costumes, while others chose Wonder Woman and Bat Girl. The boys went with Batman or Superman.

As well has raising money for the hospital, the party also allowed the children to dress up and enjoy a party from their own homes.

Zara set the children a Top Secret Superhero Mission in which they had to crack a number of codes to save the Superhero Disco from disaster.

“The Superhero Disco in Superhero city was hanging in the balance so the awesome team of superheroes had to use their superpowers to complete the mission,” she said.

“We worked together as a team to travel to Superhero City. Once there, we had four codes to crack, a Super Brain test, Super Pose Mission, Invisibility Test and a Superhero Hunt around the city.”

Zara, who lives in Old Woking, received many messages of thanks from parents, including Diane, who wrote: “Thank you so much for an amazing afternoon, Super Emilia had the bestest time.”

Louise wrote: “Thank you so much for such an enjoyable party for such a good cause. We had a ball and would thoroughly recommend your events.”

Nicholas called the party “a fabulous adventure enjoyed by our very own Spider girl” and Lyndsay wrote: “Paige had such a fun time and I could tell the other children did too.”

The children were invited to send Zara a photo of themselves as their superhero and those who did were given a discount off their next Koala Kids booking.

Zara, who launched Koala Kids in March 2019, had to abandon her first anniversary party in a village hall last year because of coronavirus. Instead, she spent lockdown making video appearances to children celebrating birthdays or just in need of cheering up.

Previously, Zara ran children’s parties in venues such as village halls, each with a theme and dressed as the birthday boy or girl’s favourite character from books, films and TV series.

As pandemic restrictions ease, she is planning to return to live events as well as running parties on Zoom. “We can start off with the ‘rule of six’ and then start getting back to normal,” she said.