Acorns Hospice launches leafleting campaign in £2 million drive to stay open
Acorns Hospice has launched a leafleting campaign to help complete a £2million fundraising drive to keep one of its centres open.
It comes as its deputy head nurse, Carmel Caldicott, revealed how the charity has battled to continue helping patients amid the coronavirus pandemic.
This week the charity sent out 183,000 leaflets to homes across the Black Country asking people to fill in forms and donate money.
The fundraising campaign was launched in July 2019 after Government funding dried up and threatened the charity's Walsall hospice.
It needs £2 million to fill a financial gap to pay for running costs. As of July this year, the charity had raised an incredible £885,000. However the UK's first lockdown hampered the charity's fundraising efforts as its stores closed.
Ms Caldicott, who has been at the charity since 2002, said: "Hopefully the leafleting campaign will go a long way to helping our cause.
"It is about raising awareness because we know since 2019, when it looked like we might close, the awareness has been raised so, so much.
"But we are still aware that some people don't know we are here."
Asked about the struggles of fundraising during the pandemic, she continued: "From March until to June, all of our shops closed and that had a massive impact on our fundraising abilities and the fundraising team.
"But also the big events, like the London marathon, the Manchester marathon, all those big races and fundraising events that we could have had, they have all got cancelled.
"Although some people did some virtual races, it didn't have a massive impact that normal mass events would have had.
"I think that is the same for all charities which have lost a great deal of money through losing those big events."
While the charity lost out on money during lockdown, Acorns Hospice still continued providing support to children and families.
One of the ways it adapted was by offering tests to patients on its car park at Walstead Road while staff were also equipped with face shields. However for a time, families were unable to enjoy short breaks in its facilities.
The charity cares for life-limited children and their families. The charity has bases in Walsall, Worcester and Birmingham.
"Initially, it was the unknown," said Ms Caldicott.
"We had to learn from what the Government and what their public health experts were telling us to do, so we did limit our short breaks.
"However we did carry on with having families in for end of life care.
"That was really challenging because some families hadn't met us before and we were all wearing face masks so communication was more challenging.
"As soon as we found out a negative result, we could lower down our protection to a normal mask and gloves.
"Even if someone came back positively, we were still able to wear a good level of protection and ensure the rest of the children were safe."
She added: "It has been really challenging. But for those families that really needed it, and in an emergency for end of life care, we were able to ensure their needs were met."
For more information about the hospice, and how you can give, call 01564 825037 or visit acorns.org.uk.
