Welcome to Martha Care Charity
We help families when their very sick children are admitted to hospital in an emergency or in crisis, supporting them with practical advice and emotional support on the wards when they need it. Martha Care provides a specialist "Martha Care" social worker to Bristol Royal Hospital for Children. Our biggest aim is to provide Martha Care workers to hospitals across the South West so all families in our area receive the support they need to be able to care for their sick child.
A message from Maggie: we urgently need your support!
Can anyone help us? We are desperately trying to raise funds for the Martha Care worker and need £48,410 to continue the work until 31st April 2014.
Martha Care, our work and our fundraising efforts are featured in this recent article from the Bristol Evening Post
I have been approaching various Trusts who are able to give us a significant donation but have been told repeatedly that we need to be nominated by one of the Trustees or Directors of the Trust or the company who oversee the Trust. Basically, we need an "In", someone who works for, with or knows, the directors or Trustees who can put us forward.
Lots of you, our supporters, are probably already in this position without knowing it. Others of you have put us forward and helped us previously. Can I please, please urge you to do this for us now.
A big donation from a single company donor or a Trust would ease the pressure on us and mean we can look beyond the end of October, but we need that money to be in the bank as soon as possible so we can provide a fixed term 12 month contract to the hospital for the Martha Care service.
At the moment we help 12 families a week, with 10 new families being added every month. The hospital want us to increase that to include the 2 neonatal intensive care units, cardiac specialism ward and paediatric intensive care unit where families are the hardest hit by their child's illness or injury. We need more hours and so have to provide a full-time Martha Care worker to cover these.
Please, please help us.
Our support worker in the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children will end unless we get some urgent funds in now
Martha Care has only 6 months of running costs left in the bank and this is all our reserve. We have several fundraising events happening over the next few months and those of you who are coming along to support us we are very grateful. But the money these raise simply won't be enough to keep us going. Our monthly outgoings are £2500, our monthly income is nowhere near that.
We've helped 70 families in 7 months and, help on average 12 families a week. But the hospital are desperate for us to help more families, especially those of new born babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Units at Bristol and Southmead. We can't even begin to think of helping those families unless we get a lot more money.
Please give, our families need your help. Stuck for ideas? Check out our simple fundraising ideas here
31st January 2013 - The Martha Care fleeces are here!
For just £9.99 plus £3 P and P you too can show your support for Martha Care and keep warm and look stylish all at once. They come in sizes from XS (equivalent to woman's size 10-12) to XL. Available only in Martha care's signature yellow!
To order yours today please Contact us directly and we'll let you know how to pay and ship them off to you.
5th January 2013 - coming soon - a Martha Care documentary.
We are delighted to announce Martha care has been chosen by the Media Trust to have a short film made about our work. The film is supported and funded through The Media Trust and Sainsbury's.
We will be working with West Country film director Will Halfacree on the 4 minute long film which will be released in the spring.
The film will be a great opportunity for parents to tell their individual stories. Every family comes into hospital with their own set of challenging circumstances, and this will give us the chance to hear about some of those.
We also want it to be a positive experience for the families, who will see their stories being listened to, maybe even for the first time. We want people to watch the film and truly appreciate just what families face when a child becomes seriously ill.
