Pennies Positivity — The Impact Of Your Pennies Micro Donations

We truly value your support and are grateful for the entire team at your Settle branch for choosing to support us once again in the upcoming year.

Yorkshire Air Ambulance is the only helicopter emergency medical service operating across Yorkshire, saving lives every day. We are uniquely placed to fly a critical care team of doctors and advanced trauma paramedics to the scene of an incident, providing time-critical intensive care wherever the patient is. Donations like this ensures Yorkshire Air Ambulance can have an expert medic, with advanced equipment, arrive swiftly on scene can prevent a life-changing injury or provide a second chance in the worst of circumstances.

Over the past 12 months, shoppers at BoothsCountry in Ulverston have been generously donating 25p to charity at the checkout, and we’ve been incredibly fortunate to be the recipients of those donations.

As we move further into a cashless society, we’ve seen a decline in the funds raised through traditional counter-top collection tins. This initiative, facilitated by Pennies, has helped bridge that gap and we’re thrilled to announce that it has raised an incredible £20,798.10 for St Mary’s Hospice.

To put that into perspective, this could fund:

693 bereavement counselling sessions

20 days of care on our In-Patient Unit

Or 57 night sits by our Hospice at Home team, providing comfort and support to people at the end of life in their own homes.

Booths will now be supporting other fantastic local charities through this initiative, although they will continue to support us in other meaningful ways.

We’re deeply thankful to the staff at Booths for choosing St Mary’s Hospice as their charity partner over the past year. Your support has made a truly significant impact and we are forever grateful. 

Our small charity can only survive, supporting more than 100 families in East Lancs and beyond, through fantastic support like yours and our own fundraising efforts, so your help means the world to us and our members.

I attach a few pictures of some of the events you have helped make possible this year. The main one is our family weekend at Marten Mere Haven in Blackpool, to which nearly 250 people came this year! This is an event which allows families to get away together on an affordable and accessible basis and spend time with other people in a similar position. We have a picnic and sports games all together,plenty of meet ups and chats and a big trip to the zoo where everyone wears an ELDSSG t-shirt and really feels part of our community. 

Some feedback from families:

“thank you for such a good weekend, it was our first one and we already can’t wait for the next. Seeing all the children playing and how good the older kids are with the younger ones was amazing and had some good conversations as well and learnt lots of new things” – family with a young child with DS

“thank you for your tireless effort and support to make sure we all have a fantastic break as families. One of the highlights of our year, as I’m sure it is for many, thank you so much” – mum with 22 year old daughter with DS

We also have 2 monthly meetings, one for families and one for our older members. We were delighted to have help from Liz and her team at our christmas party (pictured), which helped make it a great success! All our services are free or heavily subsidised, to ensure access to all, and we are proud to have built a strong community with lots of regular attenders.

Thank you so to everyone who contributed, staff and customers alike, who made a massive difference to a small charity this year.