A charity walk in aid of the new Walsall Hospice is launched today. Becky Sharpe reports on the exciting fundraising campaign.

Download the walk form here

It has been more than 20 years in the making, and now the team behind the new Walsall Hospice want you to help make their dream become a reality.

Today the Express & Star launches the charity’s Starlight Walk, an exciting fundraising campaign that all the family can enjoy while collecting money for the vital venture.

In September, Walsall’s picturesque Arboretum will become the setting for the inaugural event. And if it is a success, it will be repeated each year.

When building work is completed in 2010, it will become the town’s first hospice for adults. For two decades, campaigners have been calling for such a centre to be created in the town. Families had to travel miles to visit poorly relatives in Wolverhampton, Stafford and Lichfield.

After the long, hard-fought campaign, permission for the centre was finally granted last year, and NHS Walsall agreed to fund the building of it. Based on the site of the former Goscote Hospital in Goscote Lane, it will have 10 rooms and beds for 12 patients. Bosses have pledged to build a state-of the-art facility which residents in Walsall can be proud of complete with landscaped gardens and designed grounds. The plans include offering services such as blood transfusion, chemotherapy and specialist nursing.

But with £1.5 million needed to help equip the new building with the first class facilities it so desperately needs, the battle is far from over.

This is where Express & Star readers can get involved. The Starlight Walk will be a sponsored 5k stroll around Walsall’s premier park.

Organisers hope hundreds will join the crusade and have a hand in shaping the future of the hospice.

The people at the heart of the project, which is supported by Walsall Council, know only too well how important it is going to be to town for many years to come.

Already there are a number fundraising groups that will spend years committed to ploughing money into the venture, and leading fashion model Erin O’Connor, originally from Brownhills, has pledged to endorse the campaign.

Alan Porter is a member of the Sister Dora Friends of Walsall Hospice. The 60-year-old, from St Giles Road, Willenhall, says: “This hospice is going to be a very big thing for the people of the borough.

“We’ve all had friends and loved ones that have had to go to hospices elsewhere in the region, so it will be great to have one closer to home. It means a lot to me and I think it means a lot to most people in Walsall. It’s worrying enough having people close to you in a hospice in the first place, without having to travel half way across the West Midlands to see them.

“We’ve got a lot of fundraisers over the next year, but the Starlight Walk is the main event. The more people that get involved the better, because I can’t stress enough how important the new hospice will be.”

Chairman of the Sister Dora Friends group Councillor Garry Perry could not agree more. “These walks are very popular and have previously been held in a number of other areas. This year is pivotal to the hospice as it is now we will begin to see it rise from the ashes of the old Goscote hospital. This means we need to raise as much money as possible during that time, so we can secure all the equipment we need ahead of the opening next year.

“We really need to raise £1.5 million, which is obviously a substantial sum. But this is something that will benefit so many people in Walsall and we are asking for the help of people across the borough.

“With big appeals like this it is crucial we get that kind of support, so what better to attract that support than by holding an event that the whole family can get involved in. We are really at the most important stage at the moment.”

Terry Robshaw, director of operations at the hospice, says: “Running costs will be in the region of £2.3m a year and with some 65 per cent of this coming from NHS Walsall, we have to raise in excess of £800,000 a year to cover the balance.

“Over the last nine months we have been building up our fundraising team to achieve this task.

“To date they have managed to secure funding for three of the bedrooms and the overnight stay room.

“In addition there have been firm commitments towards costs of an assisted bathroom, day space and items of medical equipment. By September we will have a little over a year to raise the remaining funds prior to admission of the first patient’s towards the end of 2010. We hope to attract 2,000 residents from Walsall and beyond who want to help us turn a 20-year dream into a reality.”

There could be all kinds of reasons people might want to get involved.

Perhaps you’ve had relatives that have experienced the outstanding care towards the end of their lives at a hospice. Maybe you and your work colleagues are looking for a charity to sponsor this year.

Whatever the reason, you can get involved.