Hope House: Story of an amazing vision

Hope House Hospice began as an amazing vision and is here today because enough people fought to keep the dream alive see it built 21 years ago.

The Shropshire Star has supported Hope House since those first seeds were sown.

And this year, we are delighted and privileged to be telling the story, supporting the events, encouraging involvement and celebrating a very special moment for the very special children and their families who rely on the hospice at Morda and its sister, Ty Gobaith in Conway.

There can never have been a more appropriate name than Hope House.

In all its years of service, the children's respite hospice has attracted support from some big names, including an early patron, Harry Secombe.

It has brought hope and comfort to countless little ones, to desperate mums and dads, bewildered brothers and sisters and loving grandparents who just didn't know what to do to help their much loved families.

Hope House knew what to do.

And so it became a place of opening up even the most limited lives rather than closing them down which is what it so often felt like before. For so many, the living room at home only interspersed with emergency hospital visits, became their world and a pretty lonely one it could sometimes be.

Hope House Hospice is very much looking to the future as it celebrates its 21st year.

That means a new campaign, called Can you Give a Little Love, and a new fresh logo for the charity as it moves forward.

The hospice hopes that the anniversary year will help stimulate extra fundraising, especially as it highlights the many hundreds of families it has helped over the years.

And the new logo is deliberately bright, to emphasise that Hope House is a place of happiness, where life is cherished and families find the love and support they need in their hour of need.

Simi Epstein, director of fundraising and marketing at Hope House, said that the logo is an important part of letting the public know what Hope House is all about, adding: "The research has shown that we need to do more to help people understand the wide range of services we provide and who we care for.

"As part of improving that understanding, it is vital that our brand does justice to the vital and valuable work we do – to engage more supporters, enabling us to help even more children and families who need us."

To that end, what the hospice does to sustain its services, how it presents itself and how it raises the funds which are needed year by year, are absolutely vital issues.

The Give a Little Love campaign, which was launched this week, is the latest to capture the attention and hearts of supporters and hopefully, says the hospice, harness others to help with the so necessary fundraising.

If you can help or would like to know more, call (01691) 671671 or visit hopehouse.org.uk

Sometimes the most loving friends who tried their best to support, had no real idea of what might be needed medically as well as emotionally. Everybody was tentative, a bit scared, families were tired and stressed, the children needed 24-hour care with little respite. With the best will in the world, no-one quite knew what else to do.

Hope House knew what to do.

Having said what a great name is above its door, it has, however, another, a more treasured background.

The hospice was actually named in memory of a tiny baby who died when she was just 10 months old. Out of that Shrewsbury family's desperation and grief, this amazing gift to Shropshire and beyond came about.

It was the most incredible and generous gesture: to begin the funding for a children's respite hospice so that other families never again had to deal alone with the short lives and inevitable death of their beloved children.

It took around five eventful years from the inspiration founded in such sadness through to money raising, building and finally the opening of the Hope House building itself at Morda near Oswestry 21 years ago.

It cost around £3million to build the hospice and run it for the first year. And the Shropshire Star has been there, shoulder to shoulder, along with our wonderful readers, helping to fund this new addition to our services, at first in the face of so much resistance and a lot of doubts.

They were overcome. The money was raised, the hospice built and soon no-one doubted its value.

Now, the annual bill for the Morda building and its sister operation Ty Gobaith at Conway – more on that during the year – is a bumper £7 million to run the whole service which grows in its magnificent operation of care year by year.

As well as making sure the charity is carefully bank-rolled for emergencies and as times change and new innovations come along, what is seen as an even better service at the hospices and, increasingly, out in the communities.

Expensive, yes, but priceless.

Shropshire and Mid Wales and farther round the borders took Hope House to their hearts and treasure it still.

During those early days at the beginning of the 1990s, I was so fortunate to be part of the wider team which despite significant opposition, was committed to a children's hospice and we at the Shropshire Star ran a programme of stories, information, events and so on which the newspaper was proud to feature.

Through all the changing scenes of our lives since then, all the joys and sorrows, times when cash flow seemed desperate, we have supported and cared about this wonderful facility in our county and for one undisputed reason.

Hope House always knew what to do.

For me, of all the fantastic experiences in which I've been so fortunate to be involved over more than 50 years, this one has been the greatest privilege of all and still is.

It was indeed very humbling to be appointed one of the charity's early patrons. And this year is one in which we at the Star are delighted to mark all that inspired and stayed with the dream and the great thanksgiving along with families who use it, the staff, counsellors, those faithful money-raisers and the fantastic teams of volunteers.

We will be revisiting some of those original features, finding out where people are now, telling the Hope House story and most importantly and with them all, looking to the future.

As well as tracing the history and moving on, though, we also want to focus on the practical matters of what supporters are doing to raise money, awareness and in so doing, often raising spirits as well.

And we hope to offer a regular 'What's On for Hope House' spot in which everyone organising an event, appealing for help, telling us an interesting fact or two and so on, will find a home.

Meanwhile, it is right to first of all look back to those beginnings which were born and grew when baby Hope's family and friends first saw that vision and took up the daunting challenge.

Now, from that perhaps tentative, early contact, through the process of becoming familiar with buildings, staff, facilities, services and so on, families find the counselling, the transition to adult services as so many youngsters happily survive for longer, incomparable.

That Hope House is also a place of welcome, colour, warmth and laughter is often as surprising to first time visitors – but a great big bonus as well.

The children's hospice movement is so much a part of our societies across the country, transforming lives, helping children and young people live with dignity, encouraging the more able to do what they can and always giving that tender, loving care at moments when nothing else is needed.

It is inconceivable to think of life without it.

I hope that has given you just a flavour of this wonderful charity, all it is, all it does and all we are going to be looking at through the weeks and months ahead.

There is just one single and powerful reason why this children's respite hospice is not only here but must be here to stay.

Why? Well it's simple really.

Hope House knows what to do. And does it with boundless, endless love.