Housebuilder donates more than £5,000 to children’s hospices

Demelza Hospice Care for Children operates across East Sussex, Kent and south-east London and provides care and support for babies, children and young people.

An online staff auction by Vistry Kent raised £2,636 by selling the furniture inside show properties at Bovis Homes’ developments across Kent. 

A house buyer then paid £2,500 for the contents of a show home at Davington Fields development in Faversham, which was added to the donation total.

Petra Bones, Senior Corporate Partnership Manager for Demelza, with Vistry Kent’s Candice McCabe, Millie Groves and Jo White, outside the Sittingbourne care home facility of the Demelza charity (1)

Employees from Vistry Kent’s head office also spent a day volunteering at Demelza’s retail distribution warehouse in Maidstone.

The charity, which helps over 600 children with serious and terminal conditions every year, has hospices in Sittingbourne, Kent and Eltham, south-east London, and provides a community hospice at home service from its base in St Leonards, Hastings.

Petra Bones, senior corporate partnerships manager at Demelza, said: “We are absolutely delighted to receive this very generous donation from Vistry. 

“The support of companies like Vistry is invaluable, and without it, we wouldn’t be able to provide the vital care and support we do.

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“This donation will enable us to carry on this vital care as it provides unrestricted funding that is not ring-fenced for a certain project or purpose, so gives us the flexibility to use it to meet immediate needs. 

“The £5,136 from Vistry could fund either 104 hours of specialist nursing care, 85 art or music therapy sessions or 28 Care at Home sessions.

 “In short, this money will allow us to reach out to help children with serious and terminal conditions, and their families, at perhaps the most challenging period of their lives.”