Westmorland Ltd chose Eden Valley Hospice as our charity partner because we believe by having a long term relationship with a charity, we can really make a difference. EVH provide palliative care for people with incurable or life limiting illnesses and have the only children's hospice in Cumbria, opened in 2007. We have set a target of raising £50,000 over 5 years, which we are already close to reaching. This wouldn't be possible without the support of our customers, for which we are very grateful.

Each year our staff take part in a number of fundraising activities.  Here’s a snap shot of what they get up to ….

Cross Bay Walk - a group of Westmorland staff and their families completed the amazing Cross Bay Walk, from Arnside to Kents Bank, led by the Official Queens Guide to the Sands.  The walk was quite an achievement taking the group across the sands, through three waist high channels of water, and past quick sand.  Then finally when the bank was eventually reached there were numerous ravines to jump across.  The walk took around 4 hours and was finished off with some well earned fish & chips.  £762.00 was raised for Eden Valley Hospice.

Coast to Coast Challenge - After many months of training, two senior managers cycled the challenging Coast to Coast from Workington to Sunderland over 2 1/2 days.  They received overwhelming support from suppliers, friends, colleagues and family and raised over £4250.00 for Eden Valley Hospice and £1,800.00 for CLIC Sargent, who care for children with cancer and have given invaluable support to the nephew of one of the cyclists. This was a great achievement and they both enjoyed the 3 days.

Westmorland World Cup -  Five teams from our Northbound Services, Southbound Services, Junction 38, Westmorland Hotel and The Rheged Centre took part in the Westmorland World Cup. The teams, complete with their own strips and full of enthusiasm and energy, all played with great determination to win, while spectators cheered them on. The triumphant winners were the Hotel, followed closely by Rheged. It was a great family occasion with children enjoying the space hoppers, ‘hook a duck’, welly tossing and bbq. The event raised over £500 for Eden Valley Hospice, which is fantastic, and as the day was such a great success we will be making it a yearly event!

Plus -

In November staff raised £506.26 for the Breast Cancer Campaign on ‘Wear it Pink’ day.

The Royal British Legion collected £7822.97 at Tebay Services from the Poppy Appeal 

In 2009

• Five brave Westmorland Zippers - took off at 160 ft down an 800 ft wire raising over £500
• Edinburgh Half Marathon - Tina Hetherington, Centre Manager of The Rheged Centre, and Jo Dunning-Thomas, Conference & Events Sales Manager, raised £500
• Wendy's tombola at Junction 38
• Caravan Park treasure hunts, raffles bbq & dinner raised £656.50

Other charity activities in 2009 include 

• Staci Reading, Westmorland Hotels Assistant Manager raised £949.30 through a sponsored slim for Cancer Research UK.
• A magnificent £21,854 was raised in charity collections by charitable organisations at Tebay Services north and southbound - £11,406 of which was collected for the Poppy Appeal by the Royal British Legion.

 In 2008

• Sky Dive - Westmorland’s staff jumped out of a plane at 14,000 feet and raised £1420
• It's a Knockout – A team of Westmorland staff, including our Chief Executive raised £2350.50
• An Easter egg hunt and race night at our Caravan Park
• A sponsored walk at midnight
• A marathon on a treadmill at Rheged

In 2007 

• A dip in Windermere – 3 staff members joined Chief Executive Sarah Dunning to brave the icy waters of Windermere and swam 400 meters to raise money.
• It's a Knockout – A team of Westmorland staff, including our Chief Executive raised £1135

Some annual activities include ..... 

Season's Greetings- Each year Westmorland Ltd send all their seasons greetings via email and donate the hundreds of pounds usually spent on Christmas cards to our charity partner.

Christmas Raffle - Every November we ask all our suppliers if they would be kind enough to donate a prize for our Christmas raffle. Lots of fantastic gifts are received and all the money raised from selling tickets is donated to our charity partner. Bearing in mind Westmorland employ over 500 staff, this was not your average raffle.

Buy the Book - The Journey by Ted Cowling. Read about Ted Cowling's wartime exploits in his fascinating, funny and thought provoking autobiography. Sadly, Ted Cowling lost his two daughters to cancer at an early age. Since then he has donated all the profits from his book to the Severn Valley Hospice where his daughters were cared for. However, since reading about our fundraising efforts, Ted and his close friend Kenneth Ballantyne, who helped him write and publish the book, have kindly offered to donate all the profits from their books sold in our shops to our charity partner. In recognition of this, we too take have taken the decision not to profit from the book, but to donate our revenue to Eden Valley Hospice

Customer Donations - Each year our customers gave generously by money collected from the Eden Valley Hospice collection boxes placed at each till point throughout Westmorland's 6 businesses.

We are always interested in new ideas on how to raise money for the hospice, and if you have any ideas or suggestions on how we can support the Hospice and raise even more money, please give us a call on 01539 711344. If you would like more information on Eden Valley Hospice please click here.

Take a look at what we have been up to in the last 6 months in our Charity & Community Newsletter.