Every child deserves a happy ending- Please support Children’s Hospice South West

Thank you very much for visiting my blog. My name is Carly and I have chosen Children’s Hospice South West (CHSW) because I think it is a brilliant charity that deserves support from as many people as possible. There are so many reasons that I could give you to support this statement, but I think I’ll just start with a brief history of CHSW:

CHSW was founded when Jill and Eddie Farwell became fed up with having to travel for many hours to get to Helen House in Oxford with their 2 life-limited children. This gave them the motivation that they needed to raise funds for a new hospice- a hospice in the South West which was so badly needed.

In 1995 the first CHSW hospice opened; Little Bridge House at Fremington near Barnstaple provided help for up to 200 families in the South West. There are now 3 hospices altogether, including; Charlton Farm at Wraxall, North Somerset near Bristol opened in 2007 and Little Harbour in Cornwall which opened in 2011.

CHSW provide relief for families in the South West who are struggling to cope with having a child or children that are terminally ill. They do this by giving specialist care and they cater for the individual needs of the child(ren) and their family, this could range from anything like painting and creative games, to the medicine or relief that the child may need.

The service they provide to families in such dire circumstances is priceless. Their love and dedication is not only to the sick child but the entire family are very much taken under the wing of the hospice and shown a kindness and compassion that is so amazing. The facility allows the whole family to stay together in the last precious weeks of a child’s life in an environment which is warm and loving. There is also a very special kind of care for siblings, who themselves will be going through an anxious and troublesome time. An extremely heart breaking and very dark time in a parent's life is given a little ray of sunshine because of the people who dedicate themselves to the hospice.

CHSW do not just give their time, they give their hearts.

This is all well and good, but unfortunately, the specialist care that they supply is not free. It's not cheap either.

That's where you can help!

It's so easy to help and it doesn't have to be raising money, there are hundreds of simple, or not so simple, ways to help. Some examples could be:

• Go to the CHSW official website (see below), and donate directly online,
• Create your own fund raising page, where your sponsorship is collected electronically,
• Fund raise at school/work,
• Raise awareness in your local community,
• Distribute leaflets or put up posters in your local community,

All these ways of getting involved may seem like nothing but every little thing that is done has a big impact on the incredible work of CHSW, and it means that they can carry on working to the best of their ability without having to worry about costs.

I hope that you will now consider doing something to help CHSW as it is an astonishing charity which does amazing things for children with life-limiting illnesses and it is one of the only charities that cater for the families too.

Thank you so much again for reading my blog and could you please leave a comment and answer these questions:

• Did you know about CHSW before?
• Do you now know more about CHSW?
• Would you consider doing anything to help CHSW, if so, what?
• Have you ever supported CHSW before?
• Where are you from? (please leave your home town, county and country if not UK)

Please visit www.chsw.org.uk for more information.