Students support St Catherine’s Hospice

Worth students are taking part in a Youth Enterprise Project initiative with the hope of raising £4,000 for St Catherine’s Hospice in Crawley.

Year 12 students in our social outreach activity group have been given £50 by NatWest as part of the project with the aim of using their entrepreneurial skills to grow that into a sizeable donation for the charity through onsite initiatives and fundraising ventures.

The annual Youth Enterprise Project initiative run by St Catherine’s involves seven other schools in the Crawley area, all raising money for the hospice which relies on fundraising to source the £7.5m shortfall between what the Government give them and the £11m they need each year to provide both physical and emotional support to those living with a life-limiting or terminal condition and their families. This could be from caring for people at home, in their wellbeing centre or on their wards.

Worth students and members of the Chaplaincy team have already visited St Catherine’s Hospice where they filmed a series of interviews with staff members which will be used to highlight the work they do and the importance of fundraising.

Our students interviewed two senior clinical nurse specialists, a volunteer whose husband had received end of life care from the hospice, the community fundraiser lead and the head of site services who talked about the Hospice’s new premises which were opened in 2023. He told our students: “On our previous site we had 12 beds and on this site we have 24. Sadly, because of funding, we are only able to fund, open, manage and operate 12 of those 24 beds. The reason for opening a 24-bedroom hospice was to expand our reach but sadly we just can’t afford to open those 12 beds.”

As part of the Youth Enterprise Project, Worth students have 10 weeks to meet their fundraising target, with the closing date being Thursday 27 March, with an awards night to follow for schools involved on Thursday 24 April.

You can donate to our fundraising for St Catherine’s Hospice via our JustGiving page here: https://www.justgiving.com/page/worth-school-stchfund

Below is a compilation of clips from the five interviews carried out by our students.