Hospice opens largest store in bid to raise funds

A hospice which provides care for babies, children and young people has opened its largest store in Leicestershire.

Rainbows Hospice for Children and Young People officially opened the furniture store in Shepshed on Friday.

Hannah Coventry, associate director of retail at Rainbows, said the hospice started taking donations for the shop recently and had been "overwhelmed" by the response.

She said the hospice, which is headquartered in Loughborough, needed £10.2m a year to run its services and needed to raise £8.5m annually towards that.

"We are so excited to be opening our first shop in Shepshed, and the first Rainbows shop to sell furniture," she added.

"We started taking donations a few weeks ago and we have been overwhelmed and blown away by the kindness and generosity of the local community.

"At Rainbows, we rely on our supporters to help us raise money to provide specialist palliative and end-of-life care, and the people of Shepshed and surrounding areas have just been wonderful in doing that."

She said Rainbows had 11 stores, which were "absolutely integral" to its fundraising efforts.

"They are the opening showcase to our customers on the high street and customers can come into our doors not really understanding who we are.

"We can talk to them about what we do at Rainbows and sign them up for lottery, they can shop with us, so the income is pivotal to what we need," Coventry added.

The new shop in Armstrong's Mill, Charnwood Road, sells clothes, toys and books, in addition to furniture.

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