ERA, the home alarm security and ironmongery firm, is donating £8,000 to children’s hospices, and making it the company’s nominated charity for 2021, for a second year.
Hope House Ty Gobaith Children’s Hospices supports families in Shropshire, Cheshire, and Mid and North Wales who are caring for a terminally ill child or whose child has died. As the pandemic cut most of the usual fund-raising by Wolverhampton-based ERA, staff agreed that rather than give customers gifts this Christmas, they are instead giving a charitable donation.
Darren Waters, ERA’s CEO said: “As we do every year, we asked employees to vote from a selection of charities, and Hope House Ty Gobaith Children’s Hospices was the unanimous choice for this year and now 2021 as well. We are proud to be associated with an organisation that is making a huge difference to people’s lives when they need it most. Our Commercial Director, Helen Downer, was all set to take part in the Peak, Paddle, Pedal team fundraising event this summer for Hope House, which has unfortunately had to be postponed until 2021.”
And Simi Epstein, Director of Fundraising & Marketing at Hope House Ty Gobaith Children’s Hospices said: “We were completely stunned at the staggering donation of £8,000 which we received from ERA Home Security and I cannot begin to put into words how grateful we are.
“As for everyone in March, Covid changed everything and we had to adapt our ways of working overnight. We were determined that no child would die without their family around them and thanks to the generosity of our amazing supporters, we were able to continue to provide crisis and end of life care throughout.
“Our financial losses to date this year have been unprecedented. With our retail shops having to close we have seen a dip in income of over £750k and due to the cancellation of our fundraising events, community and corporate income streams have dropped by over £350k. We are realistic and know we cannot make up these losses, but we cannot afford for this to continue and we are therefore working hard to develop alternative fundraising initiatives.
“The generosity of ERA has reminded me that not everything has changed, we continue to have loyal supporters who provide the financial help we so desperately need. I find this knowledge comforting as I look ahead and I would like to thank everyone involved for restoring my faith that together we will make it out the other side stronger and better and most importantly that no family will face the death of their child alone.”
About Hope House Children’s Hospices
It costs £6.5m a year for the charity to operate, and 86pc of this is spent on care. In a year, about one month’s income comes from statutory sources and for the other 11 months the charity is dependent on public support. The ambition is to raise an extra £2.5m each year to make sure it reaches every child and their close relatives who need help in the region. Visit www.hopehouse.org.uk.
