With Santa dashes and Light up a Life services taking place around the country, alongside numerous other bespoke events, local communities have rallied to ensure that hospices, their patients and their staff are not forgotten over Christmas.
At the beginning of December, around 6,000 people took to the streets of Glasgow in full Santa costumes to support the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice’s Brick by Brick appeal. Participants came from all over the world, with Santas from France, Sweden and Malaysia joining Glaswegians – and were lucky to enjoy a break from the awful weather caused by Storm Desmond.
Thousands more people across the country took part in similar events, with 400 turning out in St Albans for Rennie Grove Hospice Care’s Jingle Bell Jog, and similar numbers in Pinner to support St Luke’s Hospice and in Widnes for Halton Haven Hospice to name just a few.
“We are particularly grateful for the continued fantastic fundraising efforts of the local community which will help ensure we can carry on caring for local patients and families into the future,” Gillian Barnett, the director of fundraising and marketing at Rennie Grove, told the Herts Advertiser.
Every year, Light up a Life services give people the chance to remember friends and family members who have died, with several hospices holding these events in the community.
The Rossendale Free Press reported yesterday that more than 400 people crammed into St Mary’s Church in Rawtenstall for Rossendale Hospice’s service. Sam Morris, the charity’s community fundraising manager, called the service an “uplifting celebration”.
“Just as our lives become so busy during the festive season, Light up a Life offers a chance to reflect and remember those who mean so much to us,” she said.
Numerous other hospices held services, including Lancaster-based St John’s Hospice, which managed to stage its event in Morecambe despite the battering that the area has taken from Storm Desmond. A second St John’s service which was due to take place in Kendal on 7 December has been rearranged for January.
Many hospices have also used the festive period to remind people in their area of the effort and commitment of staff to enhance the experiences of both patients and their families.
Sarah Black, whose son Benjamin died at Robin House Children’s Hospice last December, is fronting the Children’s Hospice Association Scotland (CHAS) Christmas appeal with the rest of her family. She had only positive words to describe the care provided by the charity.
“CHAS were such a source of strength to us when we needed it. They kept us in their little bubble for that week and we will never be able to repay them,” she told the Daily Record. “If we can help other families who need the care of CHAS this Christmas by encouraging everyone to support their appeal, we’re more than happy to do it.”
Other highlights of the season have included the free lunch enjoyed by patients from Sue Ryder Nettlebed Hospice in Henley-on-Thames, the Christmas market set up by St Christopher’s Hospice in Bromley, and the numerous sports stars and other celebrities that have visited children’s hospices across the country.
Together for Short Lives and Shooting Star Chase will also benefit from money raised from Louisa Johnson’s single ‘Forever Young’. Crowned as the X Factor winner on 13 December, Johnson has already achieved a top 10 position on the UK chart.
And while the UK might still be in full Christmas mode, ever-resourceful fundraisers have turned their attention to January, with Treetops Hospice Care offering to recycle Christmas trees in return for donations and Isabel Hospice encouraging over-indulgers to take on a sponsored 10-day detox for the charity.
Find your local hospice on the Hospice UK website.
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