“At what was the most difficult and heartbreaking time of my life, St Luke’s were my guardian angels and I will forever be grateful to them.”
Sam Barker, Headteacher at Leigham Primary School, will be one of the hundreds of pink-clad walkers taking part in our Midnight Walk on Friday.
It was Lynette Ball’s dearest wish to witness her son, Stuart, marry his partner, Amy. But with a terminal diagnosis and Lynette’s health deteriorating rapidly, time was running short.
That’s when the St Luke’s nursing team caring for the 60-year-old mother and grandmother at her home on Plymouth’s Barbican pulled out all the stops to make her dream come true.
“St Luke’s took the reins we didn’t know how to steer and guided us with gentle hands right through to the very end.”
Like many of the walkers taking part in our Midnight Walk on Friday, Danielle Craig, a Learning Support Practitioner at Duchy College, will be taking on the walk in memory of someone special, her late husband Lee.
Halfway up a wild and wet Mount Snowdon, George Fletcher felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around to find a little girl aged around seven or eight waiting to hand him a £10 note.
She wasn’t the first or last to approach the 85-year-old from Ivybridge as he embraced the enormous challenge of climbing the highest mountain in Wales, accompanied by his son Marc, and family friend Mark Buckham, to raise funds for St Luke’s.
Halfway up a wild and wet Mount Snowdon, George Fletcher felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around to find a little girl aged around seven or eight waiting to hand him a £10 note.
She wasn’t the first or last to approach the 85-year-old from Ivybridge as he embraced the enormous challenge of climbing the highest mountain in Wales, accompanied by his son Marc, and family friend Mark Buckham, to raise funds for St Luke’s.
As modest as he is kind, Andy Campbell would never describe himself as a ‘hospice hero’, but having reached the milestone of 35 years’ dedicated service with St Luke’s – making him the team’s longest serving current employee – it’s a title that could not be more deserved.
Behind the doors of St Luke’s you will find an intricate web of volunteers keeping our charity running.
This week is Volunteers’ Week (3-9 June), a chance to celebrate the wonderful team of volunteers that keep the cogs of St Luke’s turning. From working in our fleet of shops, to volunteering at our specialist unit, our volunteers are the backbone of our organisation.
When Marc Fletcher and his best mate started making plans to climb Mount Snowdon in memory of his late mother, Eve – shining a spotlight on the care she received from St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth – they asked his father, George, if he’d like to take the train up to meet them at the top and perhaps walk back down.
But the 85-year-old was having none of it. If they were climbing Snowdon – the highest peak in Wales – then George wasn’t going to take the easy option. For him it’s not only a way to honour his wife of 55 years, but also to raise funds for St Luke’s so that other local families can benefit from the compassionate doorstep urgent care service he had no idea existed until they experienced it themselves earlier this year.
A premier south west car dealership is helping to keep St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth’s expert urgent care services on the road.
The charity’s nursing teams clock up more than 80,000 miles each year, delivering their specialist end of life care direct to the homes of patients all over Plymouth, West Devon, the South Hams and East Cornwall, so it’s vital for them to have transport they can rely on.
This week Roger Young’s recently opened Suzuki showroom, based at Saltash, handed over the keys to a brand new Ignis hybrid four-wheel drive hatchback to bolster the charity’s fleet for the next six months.
Our volunteers are a truly inspiring bunch. They selflessly give up their time to help others, rarely getting time themselves to relax and unwind.
Which is why we were overjoyed when one of our dedicated volunteers was awarded a special mini-break thanks to Room to Reward, a volunteer-recognition charity who offer UK based breaks for hidden heroes.
Sheila Eccleston, who lives in Hooe, has been volunteering for half a day every week on our reception at our specialist unit at Turnchapel for the last decade, having celebrated her 10 year anniversary in November last year. It was her unwavering dedication and kind-hearted nature that meant she was nominated for the reward.
