A CHILDREN’S hospice in Didsbury has launched its annual ‘Easter Chick’ fundraising appeal and is urging people to donate knitted chicks and crème eggs.
Francis House Children’s Hospice, which supports children with terminal illnesses and their families, are gathering colourful chick costumes which they will fill with crème eggs and sell to local schools and businesses in the run up to Easter.
The local community has gone to egg-ceptional lengths to support the campaign, which has already seen a flock of 40,000 knitted chicks donated and almost 29,000 crème eggs.
Rachel Astill, fundraiser at Francis House said: “For every chick that is kindly knitted, we needed a chocolate egg to put inside.
“These cute chicks are then sold by our fundraisers to local schools for £1 and everyone involved has so much fun.
“Most importantly thousands of pounds are raised every year through the appeal to help provide the services at the hospice that are a lifeline to so many families.”
The hospice’s annual appeal was launched around 15 years ago by a group of volunteers and since then knitted chicks have flocked in from across the world.
Donations are vital to the daily running of the hospice, which helps over 460 families per year.
They are hoping to exceed last year’s total of £27,492, which will contribute to the £4.2million they rely on in charitable donations.
Quite a day – 2052 eggs from Sky and 846 chicks from Smooth Gym. Just a few of the many donations! #northwich #cheadle #lytham #stockport pic.twitter.com/4sTQKGffjA
— Francis House (@FrancisHouseCH) March 13, 2017
Stockport-based recruitment agency Grassroots, who are actively involved in different campaigns across Greater Manchester, encouraged individuals throughout their office building to support the campaign.
Grassroots’ Operations Director, Caroline Patten commented: “It’s great that we can all come together as a community of businesses to support such a fantastic local charity.
“Although the smell of chocolate from our team’s office was a distraction at times!”
Go to www.francishouse.org.uk/easter-knit-a-chick-appeal for more information.
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