Salisbury Care Home Residents Raise £2,000 For Children’s Hospice

A charity that helps children with life-threatening illnesses and their families has thanked a Salisbury care home for raising nearly £2,000 in precious funds.

Residents and staff at Colten Care’s Braemar Lodge nursing and residential home held a year-long campaign of events in aid of Naomi House and Jacksplace.

Among the highlights were a pub quiz, garden party, Christmas market, summer barbecue and various raffles.

At a presentation at the home, residents including Ruby Cutler, 100, Dorothy Noyce, 102, and Betty Winter met charity ambassadors Stephen and Pauline Bailey and handed over a cheque for £1,908.93.

Stephen said: “We really appreciate the generosity and support of the residents and team here at Braemar Lodge. Without this kind of help we wouldn’t be able to provide the services we do such as caring for the complex medical needs of children, providing end of life care, and enabling bereavement care to be there for as long as a family need it. We rely very much on community fundraising and so we thank everyone here for all they have done.”

Based in Sutton Scotney, Winchester, the Naomi House and Jacksplace hospices provide expert hospice care to more than 340 children and young people. The hospices work with families in Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, West Sussex and across the south. Annual running costs are around £7 million a year but only around 10% of that is met by government, hence the continual need for community support.

Sylvie Rodulson, Braemar Lodge’s Activities Organiser, said: “We have a deliberate policy of combining our activities programmes with fundraising for charities. It’s always up to our residents to choose the organisations we support every year. We all get behind the choice and do what we can to help.”

The residents’ main nominated charity for 2017 is Horatio’s Garden. This is a national charity aiming to create therapeutic gardens at NHS spinal units to help patients enjoy beautiful, accessible outdoor spaces every day of the year. It was launched at Salisbury District Council in 2012 in memory of young volunteer Horatio Chapple who came up with the idea of a garden and researched the views of patients to help with the design.

Residents at Braemar Lodge are to have a talk about Horatio’s Garden from representative Stephen Harris ahead of their fundraising campaign.