Greenwich & Bexley Community Hospice reveals their plan to bring back the magic of Christmas with a jammed pack calendar of activities to help the local community to have some much-needed fun this Christmas!
The Hospice’s Christmas fundraising events are as follows:
- Lights of Love on Saturday 28th of November at 7pm – a chance for people to remember their loved ones.
- Virtual Christmas Fair on Saturday 28th of November –a selection of online stalls for your Christmas shopping, a virtual Santa’s Grotto, online raffle and a special Christmas afternoon tea to order and collect.
- Socially distanced Grotto and Virtual Grotto between Monday 30th of November – Thursday 24th of December – Santa and his Hospice Helpers will be returning to Greenwich Market every Thursday to Sunday in December. This year there will also be a chance for families to have a personal call with Santa between Monday and Wednesday’s in December.
- Christmas Jumper Day Friday 11th December or choose your own date – spreading Christmas cheer
to offices, schools and homes around Bexley and Greenwich
- Virtual Santa Dash on Sunday 6th of December – Supporters can run, walk or jog a 5k route in a place of their choosing. Participants will be sent a Virtual Santa Dash T-shirt to wear on their dash.
- Carol Concert at Home on Friday 11th of December – this live streamed Carol Concert will feature the amazing Trinity Laban Choir retelling the Christmas story through carols such as Silent Night and Once in Royal David’s City. You and your loved ones will be able to sing along in the comfort of your own home.
“This Christmas, like most of 2020, will be another chance for families to get used to a new way of doing things and experience another “new normal”, but we’re all craving the things that are familiar to us and make us feel happy and safe” said Augusta Adu, Events Manager for Greenwich & Bexley Community Hospice. “The same is true at the Hospice” she added. “We’re all missing seeing our wonderfully supportive community at our fundraising events, so we hope that our Christmas activities will offer everyone a chance to enjoy some traditional Christmas fun in a safe way”.
The Greenwich and Bexley based hospice saw a dramatic drop in their income earlier in the year as they closed all 17 of their charity shops and cancelled all their fundraising events in the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic. During the four-month lockdown, the hospice then saw a huge increase in demand for their specialist care services.
Following an emergency appeal in March, the local community stepped up and supported with donations, PPE, food parcels and kind words. This support helped the Hospice to continue to provide the highest levels of care to patients and their families but as we enter a four-week lockdown and as winter approaches, the Hospice is preparing for a difficult few months.