Bereavement service awarded £20k awarded by The Freemasons

Earlier this year Ian Kingsbury visited Hospiscare in Exeter with a cheque for £1388 as part of the freemasons annual giving to hospices throughout England & Wales, this as it turned out was only the beginning.

In 2018 the Masonic Charitable Foundation (MCF) formed a partnership with Hospice UK, to help target support within the palliative care sector with the aim of helping expand vital support for bereaved families and individuals.

This year over and above the £300,000 donated directly to hospices in January they were encouraged to apply for grants specifically aimed to enhance bereavement services, 52 individual hospices applied and from those 17 were selected to receive a further grant of £300,000 and the Devonshire Freemasons are proud to announce that Exeter Hospiscare were one of those and today they were awarded £20,000 and the presentation of a certificate marking the occasion was made by Ian Kingsbury JP. the Provincial Grand Master and Dr. Reuben Ayres the Provincial Grand Charity Steward of the Devonshire Freemasons.

Hospiscare’s aim was to widen access of their bereavement support, moving away from the “one size fits all” approach, their aim to achieve this by offering a number of groups, events and activities which would increase the number of next of kin and family members they can support each year. This can be achieved by focusing on training staff and volunteers to build skills in specialist areas such as children’s bereavement support with their partners “Balloons” who also received a £10,500 from the freemasons this month and Cruise who have also received masonic support.

Ian Kingsbury said that the freemasons have given annual support to all the hospice services in Devon since 1984 but this award was particularly gratifying as Devon, having such a large population of senior citizens need this type of care and that need can only grow in the years to come, we must all be in a position to support those who are in need.