Help the Hospice
Middlesex FA staff like everyone else in the country are keen to make the best use of their hour exercise each day. Having discussed ways, we could continue to support St Luke’s Hospice in our Health and Wellbeing Group during this challenging period we have decided to take on ANOTHER challenge.
St Luke’s Hospice is our Charity Partner and having spoken with Tim Ridgewell (Events and Community Manager, St Luke’s Hospice) about our decision to postpone our events until the end of April we wanted to do something different. Following government advice, we like others have had to postpone a lot of our usual activity which included fundraisers and we wanted to understand and discuss how we could continue to help the hospice. Tim explained that the Coronavirus had obviously hit them hard like everyone and that their fundraising target now would be extremely challenging to achieve which could be devastating.
Having discussed this we realised very quickly that almost every business is in a similar position and this will have a drastic impact on funds raised and we simply could not let COVID-19 stop us.
At this moment we decided that we would tally up our usual commute as a team at Middlesex FA, totalling 688 miles and use our daily hour exercise to try and cover this distance with the aim of staying fit, looking after our wellbeing but most importantly raising funds and helping the hospice.
Our aim will be to cover the distance between a team of twenty-two staff members in just two weeks starting on Monday 6th April and completing the total via walking, running or cycling by Friday 17th April. We understand that it is currently a difficult time financially but also want to ensure that we are helping the hospice provide fantastic care for people whose illnesses are no longer curable, enabling them to achieve the best quality of life.
Whilst everyone is managing their finances and time carefully there is a huge amount of generosity out there right now and we now people in Middlesex and across the country always help when the going gets tough. We hope that you can assist us with this special cause.
A charity like St Luke’s Hospice relies so much on these types of fundraisers and this is something any business can take on during this difficult time to continue to support their own charity partner.
On behalf of St Luke’s Hospice, Tim Ridgewell explained that “the closure of our charity shops and the disruptions to our fundraising efforts could result in cash losses of up to £1 million per quarter for the hospice. The NHS only funds 40% of our services, so now more than ever the support of our community and organisations like Middlesex FA and their staff is vital to support free specialist end of life care for local people. We will be cheering Middlesex FA’s staff all the way on their 688-mile exercise fundraiser and hope everyone will support their fundraising efforts.”
If you can’t donate but would like to deliver something similar, please get in touch and we’d be happy to share with you how we will be managing the task in hand and recording our hard work. Every business could make a real difference in these strange circumstances and we are proud of our staff for putting themselves forward.
For further information on how we are helping the hospice please visit our Just Giving page where you can find out more about St Luke's Hospice and donate to a charity, we are proud to be associated with.