Our New Home – Capital Appeal

For the last 25 years, Cavendish Cancer Care has been supporting local families living with cancer. We have been based in our Centre on Wilkinson Street since 1997. Our clients tell us it feels like home – a safe place that acts as a place of sanctuary, essential to them in making the best of whatever situation they are facing. In our anniversary year, our current rented premises are no longer fit for purpose. It would require extensive work to bring it into good repair and it would still not meet the needs or provide the environment our clients deserve – one that is accessible to all who might need our support. In order to provide these vital things to more people for the next 25 years we a new home.

.Fortunately, we have been offered an alternative building, just up the road from our current base. It retains all that is good about the existing building while also offering the potential to offer an enhanced therapeutic environment to all, regardless of their needs. In addition to a welcoming reception area and well equipped treatment areas, we will also have the opportunity to create a communal therapy area, providing a vital addition to the support currently available to our clients. The Church Burgesses Trust has generously agreed to renovate the building to meet our basic requirements and is making a significant investment on our behalf in order to do this. But, we still need your help.

Our challenge is to ensure we have sufficient funding in place to create the best possible environment for our clients.

We need to provide a setting that fulfills all health and safety requirements for vulnerable clients, allowing us to renew worn therapeutic equipment, while also providing easy access for all and at the same time offering a welcoming homely and therapeutic setting.

How can you help ?

As a local, independent charity, we are almost entirely reliant on the generosity of the local community to provide our service. We would aim to develop the new Centre in the most cost effective way possible, making sure that any donations are used to ensure that we are in the best position to deliver sustainable care to our clients in the best possible environment.

“Having talked to other national cancer centres, as well as local contractors, we anticipate that we will need to raise £150,000 to cover the costs of developing the building to meet the needs of our clients.”

Past clients tell us about the importance of how they felt the first time they walked through the doors to a nurturing environment. They tell us how the surroundings contrasted sharply with the clinical settings they had become accustomed to in the previous months, or years, of treatment. This is a theme that we need to run through our whole therapy environment.

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£45 could buy an uplighter to provide soft lighting in our therapeutic environment.
£70 could buy a mirror to brighten reception and offer a more welcoming environment.
£100 could provide plants to keep reception a calming environment.
£300 could provide pictures to go into our therapy rooms that will make them feel more homely.
£600 could pay for five comfortable chairs for clients to sit in whilst they wait for their appointments.
£1000 could provide plants and some landscaping for our outdoor relaxation area.
£1500 could pay for a therapy couch where clients can receive the therapy they deserve.

Operating the centre, and providing the care that these families deserve does come at a cost. That’s why it is essential that we raise the additional money for the environment in which we support them.

A client’s impression of the Centre starts before the doors are even opened. We look to landscape outdoor spaces to offer a warm welcome. Guests will be welcomed into our reception area, which will be furnished to create a calm and quiet area.  Our other costs include ensuring that we offer access to users with limited mobility with an external platform lift within our general entrance area. We also need to make sure that we comply with all health and safety requirements for delivery of healthcare. As we offer care to all the family, including children, we aim to develop our multifunctional communal therapy area and enable this to be a hub for our children’s service. It will have a different feel to the rest of the building, to encourage children to feel comfortable to talk about their fears surrounding a parent’s illness and how it is affecting their life. This area will also be home to our relaxation and group work and requires flexible furnishing. It will have the ambiance of an informal café, with the ability to be transformed into a yoga room, peer support group meeting room, volunteers meeting area, and staff meeting room as required. It will open onto a furnished outdoor space adjacent to a landscaped planted area for clients who may feel the need for a quiet reflective moment.
If you can support us in any way, please head to our Capital Appeal online: Make a real difference www.next25.co.uk

Help us to support local families for the next 25 years.