Charity plays Santa to young cancer patients

Every young UK cancer patient spending this Christmas in hospital can look forward to receiving some very special gifts.

Playing Santa for the eighth year, The Laura Crane Cancer Trust will ensure that no 13-24-year old sufferer on a ward is forgotten.

And the 2014 effort will be the biggest yet with 500 presents set to be delivered, including gift boxes to the youth cancer unit at Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital in Exeter.

Volunteers for the small national charity based in Huddersfield will choose, buy and wrap gifts, then send them to 39 hospitals across the British Isles and over to Dublin and Belfast under its Gifts 4 Young Cancer Patients at Christmas (G4) scheme.

Each is worth at least £25 and includes a £15 gift voucher, Lily O’Brien chocolates and Seabrook crisps. Also inside is a pen and notepad, as young patients need stationery to write to family and friends.

LCYCT is the only UK charity funding medical research specifically into cancer affecting teenagers and young adults. Before it was formed in 1996, there was no fund specifically for work on cancer among 13-24-year-olds.

The Trust also tries to improve the quality of life for teenage cancer patients during their often frequent and gruelling hospital stays and it was with this in mind that the G4 Christmas boxes came about.

Trust Manager, Pam Thornes, said: “We started sending presents after discovering that many young cancer patients in hospital, especially those over 16 on adult wards did not receive any gifts.

Also, many are separated from family and friends as domestic responsibilities and long journeys often prevent loved ones from visiting the young patients at Christmas. Even when they can the bright, clinical environment is not one where a fun-filled, high spirited festive atmosphere can be readily created – while hospital food hardly compares to a traditional home-cooked Christmas dinner.”

The many letters of thanks received by the Trust tell how the Gift Appeal deliveries are a much needed boost for youngsters who experience a very different Christmas from what most of us are hoping for.

This excerpt from one written by Jacob Simpson, 18, last year shows just how much the gift delivery can make a difference and dispel the isolation they feel:

“After having spent the 2 weeks before Christmas isolated in a room by myself, it was a great relief to receive the vouchers for online shops. It may sound strange but the thing I was worrying about mostly wasn't the fact I wouldn't be receiving presents, but that I couldn't be out there buying presents for other people. 

"In a year full of your life being taken away from you, you want to do anything that makes other people feel you are normal. And thankfully, with the voucher there was enough to buy presents for others as well as a little treat for myself. All of which could still occur from my isolated room on the ward.  In a way, the gift that I received from the Laura Crane Youth Cancer Trust not only gave me material items, but allowed me to get into the Christmas spirit; even when my body wasn't up to it.”

Anyone can support the G4 drive, whether by donating gifts or as a volunteer or companies. To find out how you can help, please contact the Trust on 01484 510013 or at hello@lauracranetrust.org