We caught up with Julie Parks the wife of a patient here at the Sussex Cancer Centre to ask her about the amazing fundraising efforts at The Stags Head in Portslade.
Julie’s story
Our local pub “The Stags head” in Portslade village held a charity evening to raise money for the Sussex cancer centre after Russell a regular, was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the age of 53 and received the good news that his cancer was in remission .
We wanted to celebrate and the landlord offered the pub as the venue. We decided it would be good to hold a raffle and we contacted everyone we knew and just asked them to support us and the response was amazing.
Our main events were silent auctions because the value of some of the donations were too much for a raffle and we decided that a silent auction would be more appropriate. In just one evening we raised over £2500. This year people were keen to repeat the experience and we raised a further £1850 again in one night with the same format. The events were driven mainly by Russ but with support from his family and friends.
Russ’s diagnosis came out of the blue and was a real shock for us. We had already had a cancer experience as a family and thought we had had “our turn”. The treatment, the staff and just our general hospital experience was very good and we wanted to say thank you. When we thought about it, it was the little things that made a difference. The car parking being free both at the hospital and the radiotherapy centre was such a relief. As it turns out, for us it wasn’t the financial “free” but the availability that there was somewhere to park, taking away that additional stress. The slipper socks that felt normal just made a difference. We saw the notice board with the cancer centres achievements and thought it was a good cause to support. Everyone who has been touched by cancer could join in as it didn’t focus on any particular type.
Thank you
As well as the staff and the locals from the pub we know this has been a real family effort, with an elderly aunt making beautiful knitted Christmas decorations for sale at the pub and other family members singing at the event. Thank you to all involved and it’s great to hear that community spirit is truly alive and well at the Stags Head – Thanks to every one.
If you would like to fundraise for the Sussex Cancer Fund but don’t know where to start, our fundraising pack has some great ideas.
