We are delighted to announce that we have raised £2,000 – our biggest total ever – from our charity Christmas Tree. Funds will be split equally between Samaritans and nine other charities.
Each year we usually display a Christmas tree in the foyer of the crematorium and invite clients to make a small donation and hang a bauble in memory of their pets, but with COVID restrictions in place we created a beautiful memorial tree outside for all to admire. The monkey puzzle tree, which sits at the front of our grounds and has the ashes of Barry & Carole Spurgeon interred beneath it, was lit up with Christmas lights and gradually filled with personalised baubles throughout December.
Kevin Spurgeon said: “We regularly raise money for animal charities through the wishing well here in the Dignity grounds, but the Christmas tree allows our clients to pay tribute to pets that they have lost. We have an extremely generous group of followers who not only want to support to our chosen charities, but also wish to remember their beloved pets.”
At Dignity, we are proud of our ethics, which is one of our core values. In 2014, Kevin was given an honorary fellowship by the University of Winchester for the commitment to running Dignity with ethics and compassion. Supporting charities is one such example and we currently support 36 different animal charities through our wishing well.
We recently announced on our social media pages that 486 charity baubles were sold in the run up to Christmas, raising a total of £1,355. We added £192.50 from donations made in our charity well and Kevin then generously rounded the figure up to make a grand total of £2,000. We ran a poll for our followers on social media to decide how the money should be split between charities. The results were analysed and it was announced that we would be splitting the total equally between Samaritans and nine other charities randomly selected from our charity well. These charities include; Pet Blood Bank UK, Tower Hill Stables Animal Sanctuary, Hounds for Heroes, Garbo’s German Shepherd Dog Rescue, Dog Lost, Farnham, Camberley & Districts Cats Protection, Medical Detection Dogs, Berkshire Search & Rescue Dogs and Blue Cross Pet Bereavement Support Service.