CHRISTMAS COMES EARLY FOR THREE LOCAL CHARITIES - Primula
Dec 23, 2019

CHRISTMAS COMES EARLY FOR THREE LOCAL CHARITIES

Three charities in the North East received a surprise early Christmas present at our annual Christmas site briefing as we presented them with a combined donation of £67,000.

St Bede’s Palliative Care Unit, South Street Community Primary School and Jack’s Journey were all invited to our head office for what they thought was a pitch to us to be in with a shot of securing funding.

Unbeknown to them, our staff had already voted for their winning charities and representatives were instead invited to our Christmas Briefing which celebrated the year’s successes, where they were each presented with a cheque.

St Bede’s Palliative Care Unit was surprised with a cheque for £25,000. The ten-bedded unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital offers palliative care services across Gateshead in patients’ homes, care homes, the QE acute setting and at St Bede’s Unit, as well as offering clinical leadership and education to services providing palliative care. The money donated by Primula will go towards two important projects for St Bede’s – a brand-new therapy room and a redesign of the garden.

Gateshead school, South Street Community Primary School, was also surprised with a donation. The school, which is situated just 3 miles away from Primula’s headquarters and factory, received £22,000 towards a full replacement of the play area. Children from the school were on hand to receive the donation after they’d delivered maximum Christmas spirit with a special carol performance for the Primula workforce.

Jack’s Journey, which provides financial support to families following a diagnosis of childhood cancer and runs a holiday home in Cumbria for those families experiencing this difficult time, was the final recipient of a donation. £20,000 was presented to the charity to enable it to purchase a new caravan in the North East which would allow Jack’s Journey to extend the number of families it supports.

Presenting the charities with cheques was our managing director Paul Lewney. Paul commented: “Being able to help local charities is what drives each and every one of us here at Primula and being able to deliver such a fantastic Christmas surprise to three incredibly worthy causes really makes all of the hard work throughout the year worth it.

“We collectively chose these three charities knowing what a difference it will make to lives across the North East and we hope that the donations will help them to continue delivering invaluable work into the future.

“Everyone at Primula counts down to the day when we surprise our chosen charities; it’s a really special day. This year, we’d like to thank the wonderfully talented children of South Street Community Primary School for making it even more festive and memorable.”

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