Fundraising For Forest Holme

Des Cross has an aggressive form of cancer, so made the unusual decision to host his Wake before he died. His wife Christine tells the story.

I would suggest anyone facing their death to think about doing this; it really is amazing. And as Des said he can join in and take these memories with him.

We had collection boxes and raised £240 for Forest Holme.

Our thanks are to Forest Holme and especially Mandi, his care nurse who is there for us anytime.

Des is clinging on but time is very short now. He will be coming back when the time gets closer.

Des Cross, my husband and soul mate of 39 years, was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer in November 2019. At that time the Consultants hoped that he would have at least 10 years of life to enjoy but sadly that’s not going to be. We were told at Christmas 2021 that all options for treatments had been exhausted and this cancer was aggressive and charging on.

Des always said that he doesn’t want a full on funeral, he wanted to see everyone and enjoy his own Wake, so the idea of an Awake Wake was born. On the March 12th this happened as family and friends came from far and wide to see Des, share memories and enjoy the afternoon. It was an emotional but happy time and ended with Des getting a standing ovation and an arch of arms and hugs. It was very emotional.

Franke Chivers raised over £2,500 for Forest Holme through a 24hr charity live stream on a social media platform and explains below what it involved and why she did it.

I'm a streamer over on the platform ‘Twitch’. I stream video games with or without friends/viewers and also stream just chatting with my viewers. So for the first few hours of the charity 24 hour stream that’s pretty much what I did; chat and game with a bunch of people.

The event managed to raise over £2,500 for Forest Holme Hospice during this 24 hour period and we have a few more donations still to come in but goals were well and truly smashed. We started off with £500 being our target to hit and had to keep increasing it as the donations rolled in. My mum was diagnosed with stage 4 Metastatic Breast Cancer last year. She lives in Poole but I have lived in Canada for two and a half years and due to immigration and Covid I was unable to see her. I am still yet to see her again, so I wanted to do something where I felt I was helping in some way. I asked if she could pick a charity for me to raise money for and she couldn't stop telling me how incredible Forest Holme Hospice is, so I was sold on doing everything I could to make a difference.

My sister last year also raised some money for you through a raffle event and my brother will be doing some kind of event at some point soon too which is amazing.

We love these photographs of Chrissy and Nick that were taken during the Brighton Marathon. The photographs capture so many emotions; pain, determination, support, dedication, and elation.

Chrissy, despite being pregnant and suffering from sciatic pain, ran for 7 hrs 29 mins to ensure that she crossed the finish line!

Since 2012 the Burkmar family have been tirelessly fundraising in memory of Nick’s mum Mandie, who was cared for by the team at Forest Holme.

Mandies legacy has helped to ensure that other families in a similar position receive the highest level of care and support following a terminal diagnosis.