In a bid to offer more services to people who have been bereaved, Southern Area Hospice Services have overhauled their ‘Donating in Memory’ portal to help you find the suitable tribute to your loved one.
You might decide to create a tribute page, dedicate a leaf on the Hospice memory tree or make a donation. Your donation can be in lieu of flowers or a regular ‘in-memory’ gift, with donations going to help provide care for families in need.
CREATE A TRIBUTE PAGE
The tribute pages are dedicated online spaces where you can celebrate the life and memory of your loved one.
Free to use, the tribute pages offer a place where family and friends can come together to share memories, photos, music and special moments. Tribute pages are permanent online memorials and can be accessed anywhere.
With the tribute pages you can: collect donations, add photos, videos and music, share stories and memories, share your thoughts in your own private journal plus much more.
DEDICATE A MEMORY TREE LEAF
The Memory Tree is a hand-sculpted tree situated in the corner of the Hospice gardens in Newry. Your leaf will be engraved with your loved one’s name and hung on the tree. Memory leaves are displayed on the tree for one year.
After this time, you will be given the option of either renewing your leaf or having it presented to you in a special keepsake box. Anyone is welcome to come to the Hospice gardens at any time to have a moment of quiet reflection in the memory garden.
DONATIONS
From just £5 per month you can make a regular donation to the Hospice to help support patient care and fundraise in your loved one’s name.
You can also organise a collection in lieu of flowers at your loved one’s funeral or memorial service.
There are two ways of doing this:
- Hospice can provide a collection box or donation envelopes if required.
- You can set up a funeral collection tribute page where you can thank family and friends for their donations.
The Southern Area Hospice cares for patients and their families living primarily in the Southern Trust area, offering specialist palliative and end of life care.
Their main aim is to help patients who have received a palliative diagnosis live well with their condition, striving to support patients to achieve the best possible quality of life from first receiving a palliative diagnosis, until the end of life. They also offer ongoing support to patients’ families and carers.
Denise Doyle, fundraising officer at Southern Area Hospice, says that the new portal has a lot more to offer people than the previous functionality.
She said: “We just looked at it and wondered how we could make this better for people to remember their loved ones.”
Denise explained that fundraising target for the Hospice this year is £3.6 million and that this new service offers the “twofold” benefit of allowing people to remember their loved ones and support the Hospice at the same time.
She added: “We’re giving people a lot of different options to remember their loved ones. Grief is very personal to individuals and what they want to do. This is about offering people different ways to work through their grief.”
For more information about ‘Donating in Memory’ you can contact the Hospice fundraising office on 028 302 67711 or visit the Southern Area Hospice online memory portal.
