Funeral Service Times August 2017 April 2019 | Page 10

10
Daren Persson Funeral
Services receives cuddle cot
donation
The cot is to help bereaved families cope with the loss of an
infant
A family from Wallsend, near Newcastle, who lost their
one-year-old twin son Danyl, have donated a cuddle cot to
Daren Persson Funeral Services of Tyne and Wear to help other
bereaved families.
Danielle and Kevin O’Shaughnessy discovered that Danyl had
a severe heart defect when they were expecting him and his twin
brother Dylan.
Danyl wasn’t expected to survive pregnancy and when he was
born the family only expected to spend a few days or weeks with
him. He celebrated his first birthday and, when he died in his
mum’s arms 10 days later, his death was a shock.
After Danyl’s death, Danielle and Kevin decided to raise funds
for two cuddle cots. They had already been fundraising for St
Oswald’s Hospice, which provided counselling for the family,
raising almost £6,000.
Accompanied by Dylan and his older brother Oliver, the couple
presented a cuddle cot to Daren Persson Funeral Services North
Shields branch, and
the other cot has been
provided to the local
community nursing
team. The cuddle cot
system uses a cooling
mechanism to maintain
a baby’s condition after
they have died.
Marathon cycle challenge
supports heart patients
Grant Longden of Funeral Partners visited seven of the firm’s
funeral homes around Manchester, Stockport and Liverpool to
support The Ticker Club at Wythenshawe Hospital
A funeral arranger from Wythenshawe Funeral Services has
cycled 144km in “challenging conditions” to raise funds for a local
charity supporting heart patients.
Grant Longden of Funeral Partners visited seven of the firm’s
funeral homes around Manchester, Stockport and Liverpool to
support The Ticker Club at Wythenshawe Hospital.
Longden said: “It was a difficult challenge only to be made more
challenging by the adverse weather that day. The more it rained,
the colder I got, I’ve never been so cold and wet in all my life.
When the bad weather came, it was a case of digging in and getting
it done.”
The funeral arrangers seven-hour ‘Tour de Partners’, involving
climbs of over 1,000m, started at Wythenshawe Funeral Services.
He took in GW Turner Funeral Directors in Edgeley, Raymond
Massey & Son Funeral Directors in Dukinfield, Michael Kennedy
Funeral Services in Blackley, Kavanagh & Coates Funeral Services in
Heywood, Howard’s Funeral Directors in Southport and Ainsdale,
before finishing at Graham J. Clegg Funeral Services in Maghull,
Merseyside.
Collecting donations
along the way, he
hopes to have raised
£250 for the charity,
which supports those
undergoing cardiac
procedures at the
hospital and is run by
ex-patients.
Neville chooses Autism
Bedfordshire as charity of
the year CLIC Sargent welcomes
£7,000 donation
The funeral business has already started raising money for the
charity and has a year of events planned
Neville Funeral Service, one of the region’s longest established
businesses, has chosen Autism Bedfordshire as its charity of the year.
The business, which has eight branches across Bedfordshire,
Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, tries to maintain strong links to
its local communities and often raises money for its charities and
sponsors grassroots events, festivals and fayres throughout the year.
Staff from Neville Funeral Service have already started fundraising
for the charity and a calendar of events is being planned for the year
ahead, and the Neville teams are also accepting donations for Autism
Bedfordshire’s charity shops in Bedford and Dunstable.
Vicky Trumper, director at Neville Funeral Service, said: “We are
delighted to announce that Autism Bedfordshire is our corporate
charity for 2019. This year, we wanted to support a local charity which
makes a significant contribution to the local community. Autism
Bedfordshire provides a
vital service for children,
young people and
adults with autism, and
their families, and we
look forward to raising
as much money as
possible.” The £7,000 donation was raised
through a nationwide recycling
scheme run by the Institute of
Cemetery and Crematorium
Management
Cancer charity CLIC Sargent, which aims to stop cancer
“destroying young lives”, has been given a donation of £7,000.
The donation comes from the East Devon Crematorium, near
Exeter, “thanks to the generosity of bereaved families”. According to
the charity, with local families having to travel to Bristol Children’s
hospital for cancer treatment, the donation will “make a difference
to a number of lives”.
The hospital can normally only accommodate one parent in their
child’s room, which would leave the other family members to find
their own accommodation in a hotel, which they would have to pay
for themselves.
CLIC Sargent provides these families with a free room in its
‘Homes from Home’, helping reduce the financial, emotional and
practical burden of a young person’s cancer diagnosis.
Local CLIC Sargent fundraising engagement manager, Jordan
Anderton, said: “I am incredibly grateful for the generosity of the
East Devon Crematorium. This donation is truly life changing for
families facing a childhood cancer and I can not thank them enough
for choosing CLIC Sargent.”
APRIL 2019
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