Hospice at Home

Wirral Schools raise Festive Thousands for Wirral Hospice St John’s

Since 2019, twenty one Wirral primary schools have taken part in festive ‘Elf and Rudolph’ runs involving hundreds of children, in aid of Wirral Hospice St John’s.

A magnificent £34,000 has been raised with all the schools receiving a commemorative certificate of thanks for their massive contributions. And now, in December, even more schools are taking part in the 2021 Rudolph Run. Every child will receive a set of Rudolph antlers, a red nose, sponsor form and sponsorship envelope to keep their sponsor money safe. Every penny raised will go towards the expert specialist nursing care, pain management and support that is delivered every single day at Wirral Hospice St John’s. Sarah Burgess, fundraising officer at Wirral Hospice St John’s, said:

We owe a massive thank you to all the children, their teachers, head-teachers, teaching assistants and other staff from the schools who have supported our festive runs since 2019. We’re so excited that they’re signing up again and the story has gained even more interest for 2021.

For details please contact Sarah Burgess on events@wirralhospice.org or call 0151 343 0778

Christmas Tree Collection

From Friday 14th January, 2022, and for a busy few days afterwards, a small army of Wirral Hospice St John’s volunteers, eager to work off their festive feasting, will be buzzing all around Wirral picking up used REAL Christmas trees from outside people’s homes and businesses.

Now in its ninth year, the Christmas Tree Collection campaign is raising more and more essential funds for the hospice. For a suggested donation relating to the size of each tree; £7 under 5ft, £8 under 6ft, £10 under 7ft, £15 over 7ft, people can leave their pine/fir/ spruce tree in an accessible spot outside their house or business and, within the week, their tree will magically disappear. Thirty large vans, many of which have been lent to the hospice, are sent everywhere around Wirral. One person will take the wheel and navigate a pre-planned postcode route, while their passenger buddy picks up the tree from each address and loads it onto the back of the van.

With more than eight days after 12th night before collection, the trees will be COVID safe to whisk away. All volunteers will have gloves, a liberal supply of hand sanitiser and masks ready if they need to converse with a homeowner from 2 metres and outdoors of course.

Once each van is fully loaded it’s driven to various pre-arranged temporary ‘drop-sites’ around Wirral to offload for chipping, then it’s back on the road heading out for the next load. The chipped trees have further recycled uses, potentially in biofuel or even spread around at community farms and paddocks. Other small local charities also receive around ten per cent of the monies raised.

All the people who give their valuable time are well fed and watered while fuel costs are offered to everyone who volunteers the use of their van(s). Every Wirral postcode area is eligible to register and people can book from now until midnight on Sunday 9th January, to secure the hassle-free collection of their REAL Christmas trees by going to www.wirralhospice.org/treecollection Elaine Connell, Wirral Hospice St John’s fundraising officer, says: People from all over Wirral really get behind our Christmas tree collection campaign. We know it’s a lot of fun for our hardy volunteers who come back year after year. We’re extremely grateful to everyone who supports Wirral Hospice St John’s, including all those who give up their valuable time

To organise your and the use of their vehicles to help with the collections and, tree collections, email of course, all those people who make their generoustreecollection donations for us to pick up their used real Christmas trees.@wirralhospice.org We’re also very grateful to those organisations who lend a hand, equipment or space. They are all hospice heroes.