The money raised by Text Santa will have a real impact both on the national work of Help the Hospices and the local work carried out by our 218 member hospices, making a difference to the lives of seriously ill people and their families.
The appeal gave Help the Hospices a unique opportunity to work with its members in order to reach huge audiences and really challenge people’s perceptions of hospice care.
In particular, Help the Hospices worked with ITV to make a poignant film about a young women called Kelly and her family who are supported by St Francis Hospice in Essex. Kelly’s moving story was shown during the Text Santa finale on Christmas Eve.
Maxine Trotter, director of fundraising at Help the Hospices, said:
"Congratulations and thank you to ITV and its partners for making Text Santa such a huge success. We are so grateful to the public for getting behind the appeal and raising such an incredible amount of money for causes like hospice care.
"But this amazing total would not have been reached without the courage and determination of amazing people like Kelly Ann Seery who kindly shared their very personal experiences in order to tell the story of hospice care.
"The money raised will help us to support our member hospices as they continuously improve the care they provide to local communities."
Highlights include:
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Each day, the week before Christmas, five children’s hospices appeared live on ITV’s breakfast show Daybreak as part of their Santa in the Sky feature
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We worked with The Hospice of St Francis to make a moving film for This Morning about the important work they do supporting children who are bereaved
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This Morning also organised for a surprise visit to Lapland for a group of children supported by Children’s Hospice Association Scotland
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St Ann’s Hospice in Manchester shared their day care Christmas party with the ITV film crew which was shown on the Christmas Eve live show In the space of two weeks every single ITV regional news programme in England ran a feature about a local hospice in their region
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Across the UK many hospices were able to engage and build relationships with their local ASDA stores who were raising money for Text Santa.
Help the Hospices would like to thank all the families who so kindly shared their personal experiences of hospice care for Text Santa.
