Funeral Service Times August 2017 November 2018 | Page 31

CHARITY SPECIAL 31
Charity Special
Funeral Service Times has put together charities that you should keep in mind when suggesting in
memoriam donations to clients
W
hen a loved one dies it is
natural that loved ones,
friends and family will want
to do all they can to honour
the deceased. One popular way to pay
respect to a loved one can be by donating
to a charitable cause related to either what
they loved while they were alive or to the
disease which took their life ensuring others
do not have to go through the pain that the
deceased and their family had to. There are
many charities that can be donated to by
mourners, these include animal charities,
medical institutions, research programmes
and places of education. The funeral
profession is synonymous with charitable
acts, in their spare time funeral directors
up and down the country are completing
marathons, holding cooking competitions
and jumping out of helicopters amongst
other activities to raise money for causes
close to their hearts.
Just this month many funeral professions
have been getting their hands dirty in the
www.funeralservicetimes.co.uk
name of charity. On 18 October, The Oaks
Crematorium, in Havant, announced it
had made £5000 thanks to the generosity
of the bereaved, during a fundraising
campaign it had held for Over The Wall, a
local children’s charity which helps with
serious health challenges. Earlier in the
month a 99 year old man helped Woodville
Co-op Funeralcare to make money for
Macmillan nurses. The funeral service
provider raised £440 in total, making it the
record amount made for the company’s
fundraising activity. Woodville Co-op only
reached the record after the 99 year old
man in question, Joe Cave produced an
additional £20 to his original donation.
Earlier in the year independent funeral
directors Daniel Robinson and Sons raised
an impressive £43,000 through its charity
golf day, held to raise money for local
children with cerebral palsy. The golf day
saw 35 teams take part and was held
at Colne Valley Golf Club in Earls Colne.
This event led to BBC Essex Breakfast
recording an interview with the funeral
director as well as Braintree TV. Elsewhere
funeral professionals have been taking
part in extreme challenges such as Co-op
Funeralcare in Nottingham and Merseyside,
whose colleagues tackled the peaks of
Pen-y-ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough
in temperatures of 25 degrees, in order to
raise money for British Red Cross. Some
243 climbers raised just over £1,000 for the
medical charity.
When it comes to charity, it is the
sentiment that matters most regardless of
what action is taken to raise funds or how
much money is raised. Funeral directors
must remember when helping a family to
select a charity to be donated to on the day
of the funeral that at the end of the day the
most important thing is that it is a cause
close to the hearts of the diseased and
bereaved rather than one that will make the
most money.
NOVEMBER 2018