Blackpool hospice gets another £5,000 towards its funding black hole caused by coronavirus crisis

The coronavirus lockdown has hit charities hard, closing down shops and stopping fund-raising events being held as people self-isolate to prevent the spread of the disease.

Trinity Hospice is facing a big funding deficit, despite money being pledged to the hospice sector by the Government. Fundraisers expect to be at least £500,000 down on its target.

Last month town centre solicitors Blackhurst Budd donated £5,000 to the hospice from the solicitors' charity account, which is made up of many small sums of money (residual balances), that its clients have agreed to donate.

And the Edward Street firm had, in January, made Trinity’s Linden Centre its charity of the year, pledging £5,000 to help fund its bereavement counselling services for adults and children.

Now it has handed over another £5,000 from its clients' charity fund.

Managing director at Blackhurst Budd, Warren Spencer, said: "Having already donated £10,000 to Trinity Hospice and Linden House, following further efforts of staff continuing to work on this project, we received confirmation from the SRA that a further £5,000, which had in effect been donated by our generous clients, could be utilised for charitable purposes.

"We are well aware of just how hard many of the fundraising activities that the Hospice had planned have been hit and felt that they would benefit from this donation now with a free rein on how best it can be used to support their much needed service.

"Over many years Blackhurst Budd have supported Trinity Hospice in a variety of ways and at the start of 2020, our staff voted for Linden House as our charity of the year.

"Several members of our staff have had first-hand experience of just how fantastic Linden House is and though we’ve not been able to take part in fundraising as we had planned, I’m thrilled we’ve still been able to make a sizeable donation.”

Linzi Warburton, head of fundraising at the hospice, said: “Blackhurst Budd have been incredibly generous, and it means a great deal to us here at the hospice.

"The emergency appeal is going well, but we still have considerable uncertainty going forward – we don’t know when our mass participation events might start again, or when our shops will re-open, and are waiting for further Government updates.

"We recognise what a difficult time this is for local companies. Our nurses at the hospice, in the hospital and in patients’ own homes continue to work on the front line of the Covid-19 crisis and without the support of our local community that simply wouldn’t be possible.”