Co-Op Local Community Fund

Your weekly shopping trip could be helping to support a unique service for young people in East Cheshire.

The Childhood Bereavement Service, run by East Cheshire Hospice, supports young people coping with loss and now it’s been chosen to benefit from the Co-Op Local Community Fund with 1% of every Co-Op own brand product bought by shoppers potentially going to support the service.

Shoppers will need to be Co-Op members and should sign up to support the Hospice here www.coop.co.uk/membership. Once the card is scanned after a shop, 1% will be donated to the Hospice.

The Bereavement Service delivers counselling, peer support groups and awareness raising activity such as training courses for teachers, youth workers and relatives. During 2017/18 it supported 226 children and young people and over 1000 family members.

Initially developed with funding from the Big Lottery Fund in 2013, the service now has no external funding so support from Co-Op shoppers will be hugely beneficial.

Corporate Fundraiser for the Hospice, Kate Bowmar, says research shows that support through bereavement is important for children and young people.

“The best way to safeguard a bereaved child’s emotional and physical well-being is to involve and inform them in an age appropriate way throughout the dying process and beyond,” she says.

“We’ve already received a mid-year payment of £830 donated by the local community and would love to continue this for the rest of the year,” adds Kate.

Shoppers have until the end of October to donate to the Hospice.