One man’s lucky win is in memory of his father.
Richard Jenkins is the winner of our top cash prize of £2,000 in our summer raffle.
Originally from Plymouth and now living near Derby with his family, Richard was overjoyed to hear that his ticket was the winning one. The win came as an unexpected surprise, following years of supporting St Luke’s since we cared for his father twelve years ago.
“My dad is the reason I like to support St Luke’s and the great work the team do,” he explains.
Close encounters with fluffy bunnies Lottie and Barney and royal python Jake the snake put a big smile on some special faces at St Luke’s specialist unit at Turnchapel this week.
For Rebecca, eight, and Sophie, five, visiting their mum Josie Hasan, the chance to meet and handle the animals, brought along for the afternoon by Anna Corwood of Pets and Picasso animal assisted therapy, were the icing on the cake of the family’s experience of St Luke’s.
A daughters love of the sea and memories of her father paved the way for an inspiring challenge.
Back in July 2022, Beth Tindall-Jones’ father spent his final week at our specialist unit, receiving care after being diagnosed with stomach cancer.
Now, two years on, Beth and her two friends Ellie and Ellen completed the challenging Breakwater swim last weekend in aid of St Luke’s and in memory of Beth’s father.
Weathering the storm together is at the heart of the compassionate care St Luke’s Hospice Plymouth offers patients and their families, and that was exactly the spirit embraced by the 1,100 warm-hearted supporters who strode out on the charity’s sellout Midnight Walk on Friday night.
Heavy rain showers and some spectacular puddles couldn’t deter the excited and emotional crowd from pounding the city’s streets in memory of much-missed friends and family members, raising vital funds for the end-of-life services St Luke’s provides in people’s own homes and its own inpatient unit.
An impromptu taxi tour to places that hold special childhood memories was exactly the nostalgia trip St Luke’s patient Steve Wright wanted after weeks of feeling too weak and cautious to leave the house.
Spending time in the sunshine on the waterfront at Devonport, showing his wife, Bute, the places he loved when he was a little boy made him feel “like I’d won the lottery”.
“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.
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.
St Luke’s has thrown open the doors of its spacious new charity shop in Ivybridge, welcoming customers keen to donate their good-quality, unwanted items and snap up bargains in aid of local hospice care. There to cut the ribbon at the store’s official opening on Monday 7 May 2024 was the town’s Mayor, Councillor Alan Spencer, who was joined by shop manager Dee Spiller and community nurses from St Luke’s at home team.
