We have launched a brand new Christmas product and are urging Christmas shoppers to turn virtual gifts bought from our website into real help for families living with incurable illness. 

We been hit hard by the Coronavirus pandemic and face a £500,000 fundraising deficit. All our high street shops were closed for a second time when England entered another lockdown. Currently, only the four shops in Wales are trading on the high street. 

Gift of care

Now we hope lockdown shoppers browsing online for Christmas presents will choose to give the gift of care and buy presents and cards from our webshop and eBay store, with money raised helping to support people living with incurable illness in Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin and Mid Wales. 

Our latest addition is a Christmas gift card that enables people to make a donation in lieu of a present they would have bought someone. The recipient receives a special animated e-card, or a ‘gift card’, inside a real card, so they know their Christmas present is actually a gift to the hospice. 

The gift card joins the keepsake robins, which have been flying off the shelves, a huge range of Christmas cards and the still-open eBay store selling donated goods as online options for supporting the charity. 

Adapt

Ross Henderson, our head of retail said the gift cards were another example of how the hospice has had to adapt its fundraising in the face of continued COVID restrictions. 

“People are used to asking for donations instead of presents these days and what we’ve done is turn that round and made it a gift people can give someone else,” he said. 

Neat

“Our gift cards can have a personalized message and emailed or printed out and put inside the Christmas card of your choice; I have to say it’s a really neat, nice thing which will really help us. 

“We hope people will get behind us on this. The card is lovely, and I think many people would like to receive one in their inbox or a gift card through their letterbox. 

“Christmas is a time of giving and perhaps people could give the gift of care this year.”