Member Article

Housebuilder helps light up local baby hospice for Christmas

Four employees from Barratt Developments North East’s Finance team joined volunteers at the Middlesbrough-based baby hospice, Zoë’s Place, as they spent their time helping to get the grounds ready for Christmas.

Opened in 2004, Zoë’s Place Baby Hospice in Middlesbrough provides palliative, respite and end-of-life care to babies and infants aged from birth to five years, who are suffering from life-limiting or life-threatening conditions. As well as caring for its patients in a safe ‘home from home’ environment on a 24/7 basis, the baby hospice also provides bereavement support for families. In order to provide its services free of charge to all families, Zoë’s Place is required to raise £1.5m every year, but as it receives very minimal funding, the baby hospice heavily relies on voluntary donations and fundraising activities.

As part of Barratt Developments’ ‘Donate A Day’ initiative, four employees from the housebuilder’s Finance team volunteered at Zoë’s Place to help brighten up the site for Christmas. As part of the activity, the volunteers helped to set up an impressive 38,000 LED lights, as well as decorating the reception area, Santa’s grotto and wrapping up presents for babies, infants and their families supported by the hospice.

Sadly, due to a lack of funding, the hospice has recently had to close its doors for two days a week, which is why, in addition to volunteering, Barratt Developments North East has also donated £1,000 to the children’s charity to help it keep its doors open and provide specialist clinical care; from support network for families, to aromatherapy massages and light therapy. The hospice currently cares for 38 babies and children, and the hourly cost of providing this specialist one to one care is £29 per hour, per child, meaning that monetary funds are absolutely essential.

Lynn Wilkinson, Purchase Ledger Supervisor at Barratt Developments North East who volunteered, commented: “We were delighted that we were able to help out at Zoë’s Place in Middlesbrough! The charity do such incredible work and it was a true pleasure to play our part to support both staff and families benefiting from the trust. We all had a fantastic day setting up the Christmas decorations and we hope that they will help to put a smile on people’s faces and add some magic to the hospice this Christmas.”

Mark Guidery, General Manager at Zoë’s Place Baby Hospice, said: “We’d like to thank the team from Barratt Developments for taking time out of their schedules to help us decorate the hospice for Christmas. The only reason that we are able to run this event on an annual basis is because of the continued support from volunteers and so on behalf of all of the staff, children and families at Zoë’s Place, we extend our heartfelt thanks for the time and effort that has been put in to make our Christmas especially twinkly and bright.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Richard Savage .