Marie Curie Cymru launches Great Daffodil Appeal

Local TV

Daffodils are Wales’ national symbol, and they’re also the symbol for the charity Marie Curie. This year, fundraisers were out in droves on St David’s Day collecting money selling daffodil pins to raise vital funds for the charity, and they hope to raise even more now the appeal is in full swing.

Transcript

00:00Every year, Marie Curie cares for thousands of people at the end of their lives all across

00:06the country.

00:07The charity provides general support, and their nurses are there for patients and their

00:10families and give people a vital lifeline where end-of-life care is needed.

00:15Lowri and Tori, both Marie Curie fundraisers from South Wales, and they say that this time

00:20of the year is huge for the charity as they embark on their Great Daffodil Appeal, where

00:24the charity will hope to raise money to provide for their service.

00:28Last year, just in Wales, we raised £100,000 from our collections, that was just our volunteers

00:35getting out in supermarkets and city centres, making our daffodils available and taking

00:39donations from the public.

00:41That was also match-funded, so that was £200,000 when you consider, you know, it's like around

00:49£200 for a night's worth of nursing care.

00:53Obviously, our Daffodil Appeal would have funded, I can't even do that maths, but a

00:58lot of nights, so it's, yeah, it's absolutely vital for us, and that's why we've done it

01:02for so long and continue to do it.

01:03I mean, St David's Day is a huge day for us, and we were quite lucky this year that it

01:07fell on the first, it fell on a Saturday, the 1st of March, so that was even better.

01:13There was the school holidays, so so many people were out, and the weather was definitely

01:17on our side, so I think we made a lot of money just on St David's Day alone this year in

01:22Wales.

01:23It's not just about the care they provide though, as Tory says there are people working

01:28behind the scenes lobbying governments like at the Senate, fighting for improvements to

01:32end-of-life care, something they say has been massively left to the wayside over the last

01:36few years.

01:37So, something that goes on in the background is that we have a policy and research team,

01:43so they're kind of the people in the background who are, you know, fighting for better end-of-life

01:47care.

01:48We've got the providers and then the people fighting for it, so just last week, before

01:54St David's Day, we actually had a Senedd reception for the launch of our Great Daffodil

01:59Appeal, and our policy team worked quite closely with a lot of the members of Senedd to kind

02:05of get them on board for putting in, you know, what Marie Curie would like to see in the

02:10Welsh Government manifesto, and that's all part of what we do as well, which a lot of

02:15people don't know about.

02:16Glowery thinks that it's not been a top priority for governments, so want to see end-of-care

02:21given the time it deserves by lawmakers.

02:23It's about sort of closing that gap. We're actually sort of, well, as a society, we're

02:29moving in the wrong direction of people are living longer, they're having more sort of

02:33complex health needs, so that need for end-of-life care is just increasing. By 2048, we think

02:40that's going to increase by up to 25%, so we're just looking for it to be made a priority

02:46really. Unfortunately, it's not made a priority, but it's one thing we know we're all going

02:50to face is an end-of-life, so it needs to be made a priority in local government and

02:56UK-wide.

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