From “Rye’s Own” April 2011
Demelza Hospice Care for Children provides hospice care for over 600 children with life-limiting illnesses and their families across Sussex, Kent and South London. The charity has two hospices, an eight-bedded one in Sittingbourne and a six-bedded one in South East London and a base for nurses and staff at Magham Down near Hailsham.
In addition to the two hospices, the Demelza Community provides a hospice home service for over 150 children in East Sussex, South West Kent and South London with life-threatening and life-limiting illnesses and also for their families. Their specialist children’s nurses go directly into the family home to provide care, crisis intervention, an on-call service and respite care.
Demelza relies almost entirely on voluntary contributions to meet the £7 million needed to run their services. Therefore, Rye & District Lions Club decided that the proceeds they raised at last Christmas’s Rye Festival should be donated to Demelza, as they did the previous Christmas. They raised £550 at their stall in Rye High Street and a cheque for this amount was handed to Vicky Pickering, Demelza’s Fund-Raising Manager, by Rye Lions President, Conrad Freezer. With the total of last year’s donations to Demelza of £1,000, some of which was raised by a clothes sale, the Lions have donated a total of £1,550 to Demelza.
Whilst Rye Lions mainly support local charities, they have in the last month made donations totalling £1,210 which include donations to sponsor a Lion running the London Marathon in aid of a children’s diabetes charity, to the Lions Sight Savers Appeal, the Lions Youth Fund and their Life Skills Appeal and also to the London Marathon This money is raised at their various fund-raising events, such as their recent Brass
Band Concert and the summer’s Raft Race & Fete.
The date for this year’s Raft Race & Fete has been fixed for Sunday, 17th July and schools, clubs, pubs, companies and other organisations wishing to enter a raft should contact Bob Harvey on 0845 244 9449 and, if wishing to reserve stall space, should contact Reg Emson on 01797 224174.
Rye & District Lions, as their name implies, not only cover the town of Rye but a much large area, including many villages as far out as Westfield, Pett, Hawkhurst, Iden, Bodiam and Camber. The Lions, who in addition to having fun fund-raising for those less fortunate than themselves, also enjoy a social event each month and any adult interested in joining them should contact Dennis Kemp on 01424 752553