Did you know that Acorn Stairlifts has an ongoing charity partnership with Marie Curie, the leading UK charity providing care and support through terminal illness?
Marie Curie cares for more than 40,000 terminally ill people in the UK each year, in their own homes, in hospitals and in its own national network of nine hospices. Just as important, it provides practical and emotional support to their families and loved ones.
Our links with this wonderful charity go back almost 20 years, when we began to help out with projects and fundraising at Acorn’s local Marie Curie Hospice, in Bradford. Acorn was founded in Bradford and is now headquartered just a few miles away, in Steeton, West Yorkshire.
Gradually, our relationship blossomed into a broader national partnership with Marie Curie, established in 2015 and still going strong. Under the partnership, Acorn pledges to supply and install up to five stairlifts per month (60 per year) free of charge for Marie Curie patients.
It enables them to stay living in their own homes, being cared for by Marie Curie Nurses while surrounded by loved ones and familiar home comforts. Another benefit is that it relieves pressure on beds in Marie Curie’s hospices, so that they are available for those who need them most.
Marie Curie’s Occupational Therapists nominate those patients who would benefit from a home stairlift as part of their care and the charity passes on the requests to Acorn. We then fit the stairlifts as soon as possible.
An Occupational Therapist based at Marie Curie’s Edinburgh Hospice commented: “It’s made a huge impact in a lot of my patients’ lives. There were patients who were stuck upstairs in a room, unable to come downstairs and spend time with their family. It’s made such a big difference.”
Recently we received a lovely letter from Marie Curie, marking five years of the partnership. The charity’s Partnerships Officer, Sophie Rafter, wrote: “Acorn Stairlifts’ support this past five years has genuinely changed lives across the UK, and for that we are so grateful.
“It has allowed people to get back to their homes, to be with their families and loved ones at one of the most challenging periods of their lives. It has saved families from countless hours of worry about their loved one falling, or being isolated upstairs or not being able to afford the support they so desperately need.”
Next month marks the 35th anniversary of Marie Curies “Great Daffodil Appeal”, its biggest annual fundraiser. Because the coronavirus pandemic means public collections cannot go ahead this year, the charity risks losing more than £3 million – money that is absolutely vital to its work.
But Marie Curie is determined the pandemic won’t wilt its Great Daffodil Appeal, and there are various ways to get behind it in a Covid-safe way. You can find full details by clicking here to visit Marie Curie’s website.
Here at Acorn we’re proud to support Marie Curie in its outstanding work and we urge everyone to do anything they can to help.