An award grant to The Brigitte Trust

 The Pink Ribbon Foundation was delighted to award a grant of £2,525 to The Brigitte Trust to help towards the costs of their volunteer training programme. This money has helped to host two programmes which have enabled them to train 18 new volunteers. When people are referred to The Brigitte Trust, they are visited at home by a member of staff who makes an assessment to ensure that they are able to provide the support needed. Once completed, a volunteer is then placed with the person referred and they then receive a 3hr weekly visit by the same volunteer who is able to provide emotional support and some practical help. So far 11 people with breast cancer have received this type of valuable support from the Trust using the grant awarded by the Pink Ribbon Foundation. One of the ladies that The Brigitte Trust has recently helped, self-referred herself to the Trust after being diagnosed with a grade 3 breast tumour.

She had heard about the Trust from a friend of hers who had also benefited from their support. Here’s her story: She is 44 years of age and has two children who are 6 and 9 years old. Her husband works nights and is not able to help out during the day as his income is very important to the family now that she is unable to work. When the Trust started supporting her, she was recuperating at home but with a course of chemotherapy to follow. She was in a lot of discomfort and having young children was very worried as to how she would cope both emotionally and practically. She was very tearful and exhausted and the surgery meant that she had very little strength and upper body mobility. She was given a volunteer by the Trust with lots of energy and in addition to the vital emotional support given, the volunteer would also take her to chemo sessions, help her with household tasks and they would even prepare weekday meals for the children together, chatting as they did this.

She also helped to wrap all the Christmas presents for the children, all these tasks were very important to ensure there was as little impact as possible on the children. The lady is now in remission and no longer requires the help of the Trust’s volunteer, so the volunteer has now been placed with someone new. This is just one example of how a grant from the Pink Ribbon Foundation supports smaller charities who are making such a difference at a grass roots level. Your continued support of our Foundation, be it as a company or individual, makes help like this possible to those in need. Thank you.