A lettings agency will be recruiting artistic youngsters from Denbigh, Rhyl and Colwyn Bay to help raise money for a children’s hospice.
Angela Jones, the owner of Elwy Lettings, was spurred into action following a visit to the Tŷ Gobaith Children’s Hospice in the Conwy Valley which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.
As a result, she is organising a competition involving schools in Denbigh, Rhyl and Colwyn Bay to design new To Let boards.
For every one of the winning boards that is put up, Elwy Lettings is pledging to give £20 to the hospice charity that needs to raise £1.4 million a year to keep its doors open.
Among the goodies up for grabs are a family ticket for the Greenwood Forest Park in Gwynedd and cash prizes.
Elwy Lettings operates across Conwy, Denbighshire and Flintshire. The company is currently based in Denbigh and is planning to open new premises in Rhyl and Conwy.
Mum of two Angela, 43, explained: “For every To Let board that we put up on a property we will make a donation of £20 to Tŷ Gobaith. We will also ask our landlords to match fund the donation. They don’t have to, it would just be voluntary.
“Once the new school year gets underway we’re going to go into three schools, one in Denbigh, one in Rhyl and one in Colwyn Bay and we’ll be working with Year Six pupils.
“The winning board will actually be the board that we use as our To Let board but we’ll also have prizes for the ones who come second and third.
“I have been very lucky because none of my children has been very ill.
“I was absolutely blown away by the visit to Tŷ Gobaith and what they do, not just for children going in to the unit but also in the community for children and families. It was a very humbling experience.
“My family members have always raised money or Tŷ Gobaith, it has always been something very close to the family’s heart.
“The staff at Tŷ Gobaith put so much into it, their heart and soul, and when you go there and you see what they do and what they give to families and children, it’s absolutely amazing.”
The news about the fundraising schools competition was music to the ears of Tŷ Gobaith fundraising officer Eluned Yaxley.
Eluned said: “It’s just amazing. For us it’s a huge privilege to be working alongside Elwy Lettings.
“The profile that we’re going to get through the new boards is just going to heighten awareness that we are a local children’s hospice throughout North Wales and that we depend upon such people as Elwy Lettings.
“We need over £1.4 million for Tŷ Gobaith alone annually and we depend upon voluntary donated income.
“The services that we have are vital. We care for life-threatened and life-limited babies, children and young people, young adults through to the age of 25, and support for their families.
“In addition to that, they can have care within the hospice or within the family home and we provide trauma support as well. We are there to provide a service for any family that needs our care.
“We also do a lot of outreach work in the community. We offer bereavement and counselling and trauma support to the wider community here in North Wales and beyond from Tŷ Gobaith to all the areas we cover.
“We work closely with local emergency services, coroner’s offices and we get called upon to provide community outreach care for any family that needs us who is bereaved of a child in traumatic circumstances or a child who is bereaved of any family member through any traumatic circumstance.
“We help children and families meet death with dignity, give them the dignity through death and we’re there then as the crutch at the other end as well, as a shoulder for them to lean on once the inevitable has happened.
“The service continues for as long as any family member wants it. We care for some families, especially in Hope House, because we’ve been open there for nearly 20 years, but we care for bereaved families for 15-20 years down the line.
“We’re celebrating our tenth birthday this year and it’s thanks to the support of some wonderful friends such as Elwy Lettings that we have been able to stay open for the last 10 years and we’re extremely grateful, not just to Elwy Lettings, but to everybody for supporting us for the last 10 years.”
