Bury District Charity Steward, Chris Eccles, recently visited Bury Hospice to congratulate them on receiving a grant from the Masonic Charitable Foundation.

Chris Eccles Congratulates Paul Fennelly of Bury Hospice

Since the visit Paul Fennelly, the Head of Fundraising at Bury Hospice, has written,
“Please pass on our thanks to all your brethren for the latest grant awarded to Bury Hospice for £1,094 from the Masonic Charitable Foundation, it will go directly to support our patients and their families at a very difficult time. As I mentioned in our discussions, Bury Hospice is about to announce some exciting news, which is about our Six-Bed Challenge. As you know, we have only been able to afford to open 6 of the 12 available beds and that has been the case ever since the new hospice opened in 2013.
We have a waiting list of 4 people at any one point, so the need within the community is most definitely there. We will be initially opening 2 beds and are hoping that we will be able to open another two very soon after. This will obviously mean that there will not be the waiting list of 4 people and will ensure that everyone will get the best possible care towards the end of their life. The Six-Bed Challenge is our campaign to make the local community aware of the fact that we now need to raise an additional £240k on top of an already difficult target. This is now essential for us to ensure that we can keep those beds open and support everyone who needs support in our community.
The local Masonic lodges support to this would be fantastic and I would love to identify how you feel the lodges might like to support this campaign?
On a wider point, Bury Hospice would welcome the opportunity to engage better with all of our local lodges and if there are any opportunities to speak to your Brethren I would jump at the chance.
As discussed we have a duty to educate the public about the work of the hospice and try and bust the myths about hospice care and inform our community that hospices are more about life than death. We could organise a meeting here specifically for each lodge to find out more and have a brief tour, if you feel this would be beneficial?”
During the visit Chris learnt that the hospice is starting a children’s bereavement service, and the TLC Teddies could be helpful. As a result Chris duly delivered a box of Teddies to the Hospice in December.
Paul Fennelly went on to say, “My experience with the Freemasons has always been wonderful and over the years I have met a lot of Freemason’s who are truly philanthropic and support lots of charities, so we are so grateful to the Freemasons for their continued support to Bury Hospice.