David was kind enough to shared Jean’s story as part of our 2024 Newsletter. Thank you again to him for sharing Jean and his experiences of St John’s Hospice.
“When I think of St John’s, I think of Diane and Pippa coming to the rescue. Whether it was practical stuff or emotional reassurance, they were there. The support is massive and I needed it.
When I think of Jean there’s thousands of memories swimming round – after 57 years of marriage, two children and two grandchildren there would be! We met at Junior School. Mr Waywell told me, “Sit next to Jean: you’ll thank me in later life.” he was right. Our first kiss was at Half Moon Bay, the rest is history.
Jean was a busy woman – looking after the family, working, joining clubs, dancing, helping the Brownies and Guides, and ‘fluffing’ flowers. She was always reasonably healthy. Then the cancer diagnosis came and 18 months later we knew it couldn’t be cured. Pippa, our St John’s Clinical Nurse Specialist helped us with the advance planning because Jean wanted it all sorted out. It was comforting to both of us that everything was in place.
Jean wanted to be at home, so I looked after Jean at home for 18 months. It’s really tiring and can feel lonely but it’s what we both wanted. I couldn’t have managed without the family and St John’s. St John’s know how important it is to celebrate life events too. We wanted a family get-together for our 57th wedding anniversary. Diane bought a bottle of Prosecco to help everyone celebrate and there were hugs all round. That night I said to Jean, “Night, night, I love you”, Jean said, “I love you too” and as always, I held her hand as she went to sleep. Jean never woke up again.
There were lots of people at Jean’s funeral because she was loved by lots of people. We chose Tina Turner’s ‘Simply the Best’ because she was. To remember Jean, we had a collection for St John’s and planted six trees for her.
How am I getting on now? It just depends, one moment there’s a recollection and I laugh, another time there’s a memory and I cry. Talking to her photo helps. I still buy flowers every week, but I can’t ‘fluff’ them quite the way Jean did!
I’m still flabbergasted at the amount of work St John’s do. I used to wonder why they were always fundraising, now I know why – so many different types of care and support that we all need, and it all needs paying for.”
David Rush
You can find out more about St John’s Hospice Community Services on their pages here.
As part of our Forget Me Not Centre 2nd Birthday Appeal, we’d like you to meet Rachael, a Family Support Practitioner!
I see how each day can bring a variety of challenges for our families. I balance creative activities, therapeutic sessions and educational programmes that allow children, young people and adults to accept and understand their emotions. We encourage people to share memories and relate to others, enabling them to express their grief & ultimately restore hope.
Find out about my week so you can see how the money you raise helps people receive the support they need when dealing with the death of a loved one.
I deliver group sessions in a local primary school to support children cope with loss and change using art, play and music to express their grief.
We offer an informal and relaxed setting for bereaved adults to meet new friends.
“Grief Café is caring, sympathetic and warm – it will help you in your grief.” – Attendee Feedback
I take a small group of teenagers who have lost a parent to a café for lunch, to help them engage with one another in a safe space outside the pressures of school.
The Family Therapist and I support families both individually and together, this can be before or after their loved one has died.
“Great session as always, we always feel better after being able to talk and be open with friendly families” – Attendee Feedback
This weekly group takes part in a range of activities to remember and celebrate a loved one that has died.
“Always good to see the children reminiscing with others that have experienced similar journeys.” Attendee feedback
We have launched a special birthday appeal to mark the 2nd birthday of The Forget Me Not Centre at St John’s Hospice. The centre provides ‘wrap around’ bereavement care to local children, adults and families. This care can include creative activities, therapeutic resources and sessions to express their grief and restore hope.
In 2023 alone, the centre provided 253 bereavement support sessions for adults, 135 therapy sessions for children and young people, and dozens of group support sessions in the centre and in local schools.
The Forget Me Not Centre 2nd Birthday appeal aims to help more local people receive the bereavement support they need. Families like Melanie Thompson and her daughters, who have been supported by the Forget Me Not Centre team, before and after the death of their loving husband and father, Darren.
“We went as a family and felt at ease straight away with the lovely team. We met families going through the same as us or the loss of a loved one; making memories books and doing activities based around grief and how it makes you feel.”
“We couldn’t thank the Hospice enough for our amazing 3 weeks with Darren before his passing and the amazing work the Forget Me Not Centre offers to us even after death.”
“We would be truly lost without this amazing place, and we will continue to go when we need to…it’s made the loss more bearable.”
Darren sadly died on Father’s Day in 2023
Emma Burns, Head of Bereavement Services of the Forget Me Not Centre, said
“The centre is a safe space for individuals and families to help cope with the death of someone they love.”
“This appeal suggests a one-off donation to the Forget Me Not centre on its 2nd birthday. Such donations can make a positive and practical difference for a family like the Thompson’s or to someone who is grieving alone. Thank you to everyone donating to this appeal for thinking of St John’s.”Please consider making a special one-off birthday donation to our appeal today. Simply visit sjhospice.org.uk/fmncbirthday or call the St John’s Supporter Care team (Monday- Friday, 9am- 5pm) on 01524 382538.
We welcome your furniture donations to St John’s Hospice.
To arrange a free furniture collection please fill in the form below or contact your nearest St John’s Hospice Furniture Shop.
Thank you for supporting St John’s Hospice.
The team at St John’s Hospice were delighted to be contacted by leading independent holiday park operator, Pure Leisure Group that they would like to make a donation to the hospice, a very generous £50,000.
PLG founder and local entrepreneur, John Morphet, presented representatives of the hospice with a cheque for at its head office in Carnforth on Wednesday 17th January where he was joined by a number of representatives and ambassadors from St John’s as well as Beechwood Care Centre who also received a donation.
Commenting on the donation, John said: “We are absolutely delighted to be able to offer such substantial donations to two charities that we know from our guest and owner communities, make a real difference to people living in both Stockport and Lancaster.
“The work they do for individuals and families experiencing unimaginably hard times is simply priceless and so when it came to selecting our charity recipients for 2024 it was an easy choice. We’d like to take the opportunity to thank both Beechwood and St John’s for their amazing work and hope the cash boost enables them to continue their vital roles in the communities in which they operate.”
The donation is a combination of business profit contribution and a charity pot which has accrued throughout 2023 with £5 from each holiday booking being assigned to charitable organisations.
Sue McGraw, chief executive, St John’s Hospice said,
“St John’s Hospice is extremely honoured to receive such a generous donation from Pure Leisure Group. This will make such a positive difference to the patients and families we care for in the Hospice and in patients’ homes. The care and compassion those patients’ families will receive and remember as a result of PLG’s generosity is incalculable.”
The £50,000 St John’s Hospice donation could cover the cost for 625 visits from the Hospice at Home two-person team to travel and visit patients in their own home – bringing care and treatment to someone who has decided to spend their last weeks at home.
Pure Leisure Group has an award-winning collection of luxury holiday parks boasting a unique collection of permanent lodges, houses, rustic pods, glamping pitches, caravans and touring pitches located across the UK.
For more information about Pure Leisure Group and its holiday parks, please visit www.pure-leisure.co.uk
Donations like this make a huge difference in ensuring that St John’s can continue to be there for patient and their families at the hospice and also out across the communities of South Lakes, North Lancashire and parts of North Yorkshire.
Thank you for visiting St John’s Hospice.
If you would like to know more about the 7 day Hospice Nurse Development Programme in Specialist Palliative Care please download our Evaluation Results Spreadsheet Below:
The 1st of May this year marked the start of a brand-new fundraising and engagement initiative from St John’s Hospice – The 50-50-500 Charity Challenge.
In this new fundraising campaign for St John’s Hospice, we invited 50 businesses to spend 50 days raising £500 each for their local hospice. The teams of fundraisers were encouraged to think of the most creative ways to hit their fundraising targets and compete to raise the most!
Business of all shapes and sizes, with and without connection to St John’s were welcomed to the team for this season of competitive fundraising. Not only has St John’s as a charity seen a huge positive impact from this initiative, so have the businesses involved. Teams have seen a boost in morale as they know they are making a huge difference to a local charity.
It has broken down barriers within workplaces and encouraged team building in ways they haven’t done before.
After a brilliant 50+ days of fundraising efforts, Friday 28th July saw a special Celebration Event hosted by the St John’s team at our very own Courtyard Café to bring the challenge to a close and award prizes to those teams that had gone the extra mile in their support of the hospice.
Fundraiser Lily Knight announced the fundraising total to be a HUGE️ £35,442.73. This total will make a huge impact in the vital care and services we provide to the local community.
The wonderful catering team also served up their famous Fish & Chips which were thoroughly enjoyed by everyone before they settled down for the awards ceremony.
There were 7 awards up for grabs, the winners were:
The Lancaster Guardian kindly sponsored and presented the Charity Challenge Champion Award for the team who raised the highest amount of money. The shield was presented to Lancaster EE who raised an amazing £5,048.80!
Could your business make a difference to your local community or want to get involved in the 2024 Charity Challenge? If so, get in touch – [email protected] Visit the Charity Challenge page to find out more.
We’re delighted to present to the latest artistic creation from our Day Therapy Services Groups! This beautiful Lancaster Quayside scene has been created for the Community Wellbeing Art Competition at the upcoming Lancaster Health Festival.
You can go along and see the artwork as well as many other entries at The Storey building in Lancaster on 11th – 13th July where you can vote for our entry as well!
The scene is composed of hundreds and hundreds of buttons and some miniature surprise treasures that have been donated by the St John’s Hospice community. Well done to all the patients and volunteers from our Craft and Drop-In Groups for their creative work!
This is the 3rd time St John’s Hospice has entered the art competition. Some may remember our wonderful ‘Pimp my Zimmer frame’ entry as well as our Ashton Memorial collage, made up of staff and patient fingerprints.
The return of Day Therapy Services has gone from strength to strength with groups now operating to serve patents with different needs as well as the carers who support them.
Visit the Day Therapies and Support page for more information.
You can find out more on the festival on their website: https://www.thebayhealthfestivals.org.uk/event-details/bay-health-festivals-lancaster
St John’s Hospice heads to Highest Point Festival at Williamson’s Park in Lancaster! Along with local children’s brain tumour and cancer support charity Team Reece, we’ve been given the amazing opportunity by the festival organisers to represent at this hugely popular festival to spread the word about our services.
Our team of staff and volunteers will be there from Thursday 11th all the way through to Sunday 14th May in the Foodie Village meeting and greeting festival goers and talking to them about the amazing work that St John’s Hospice does in the local community.
We’ll also be letting everyone know about the brilliant volunteering opportunities we have throughout our organisation including our exciting charity retail shops like our Kingsway Sustainable Superstore and soon to open Caton Road Superstore!
The team will also have a range of great festival merchandise to buy including our Highest Point boom sticks. Plus, we’ll be giving out discount vouchers for our awesome Kingsway Sustainable Superstore where you can find some great last-minute festival outfits! We’ll also be collecting donations to support the hospice.
We’re looking forward to seeing everyone at Highest Point 2023! Come and meet the team, say hello and have a great time.
Every year, people around the country use Dying Matters Awareness Week as a moment to encourage each other to get talking about dying, in whatever way, shape or form works for them. In 2023, Dying Matters Awareness Week will take place from 8 – 14 May.
This Dying Matters Week we are talking about death, dying and grief in the workplace.
Two members of the St John’s Hospice team, Emma (Head of Inpatient Services) and Charlotte (Community Palliative Care Clinical Nurse Specialist) have made a short video to offer you some guidance and support when welcoming a colleague back to the workplace who has experienced a bereavement. We hope you find their chat useful.
Please share this video so that together we can all be part of a compassionate community.
For more advice on bereavement and all aspects of Palliative and End of Life Care listen to The Hospice Podcast from St John’s Hospice – available wherever you listen to podcasts – including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, PlayerFM and PodBean. Just search for “The Hospice Podcast”.
