Minster Law raises more than £2,600 for York-based hospice

A group of seven trainee solicitors at Minster Law have helped to raise £2,650 for St Leonard’s Hospice through a number of exciting fundraising activities. The money raised will help to pay for more than three weeks’ worth of specialist palliative care and support for local people with life limiting illnesses.

Minster Law is passionate about supporting the local communities and is a proactive fundraiser for St Leonard’s Hospice, having taken part in the Accumulator Challenge and the Midnight Walk as well as various volunteering days earlier this year. Although the hospice receives some government funding, most of its running costs are raised through fundraising and they rely heavily on the generosity of the public to help raise the £4.85 million it costs to run each year.

As well as hosting a homemade cake sale, Clare Smeaton, Joanne Jewell-Purves, Rosie Owen, Luke Hopkinson, Sally Vasey, Breesha Loughran and Matthew Itson managed to raise £1,325 through the sale of raffle tickets to win a number of sought-after prizes including Amazon vouchers, beauty treatments and a tour of the York Brewery. Minster Law then matched the figure to bring the final fundraising total to £2,650.

“We wanted to try and help raise enough money to provide a week’s worth of care”

Minster Law Trainee Solicitor, Clare Smeaton, who led the fundraising activities said: “We are keen supporters of St Leonard’s Hospice and regularly host fundraising activities or volunteer our spare time to help the staff there. However, we were shocked to hear that it costs £120 for them to provide nursing care to one patient for just one day, so we wanted to try and help raise enough money to provide a week’s worth of care.

“The hospice’s specialist nurses care for and support patients and their families at every stage of their journey for as long as necessary, and we’re really proud that with our colleagues’ help, we were able to raise more than enough funds to cover the equivalent of three weeks’ worth of patient care.”

“We really appreciate all of the fantastic support we receive from the local community”

Sarah Tarpey, Fundraising Manager at St Leonard’s Hospice, said: “We are so grateful that the trainee solicitors from Minster Law chose to support our ‘Sponsor a Nurse’ campaign. We’re really impressed, not only with the amounts raised, but also the variety of fundraising ideas, methods used, fantastic team work and community spirit.

“Thank you also to everyone at Minster Law for supporting the trainees during the fundraiser and for match funding the total raised. As the majority of our running costs have to be raised from donations and fundraising, we really appreciate all of the fantastic support we receive from the local community. Without it, we couldn’t do what we do.”

To find out more about Minster Law’s charity and fundraising initiatives, please visit www.minsterlaw.co.uk/csr.