THE Little Harbour children’s hospice at Porthpean in St Austell is receiving a donation of more than £4,000 thanks to a local business that is celebrating its 40th anniversary.

St Austell insurance brokers Rowett Insurance has secured a grant of £4,100 for the hospice as part of its special celebratory fundraising drive.

The family firm has nominated Little Harbour, which is run by Children’s Hospice South West (CHSW), as its charity of the year as it marks 40 years of trading.

And the business has been awarded the grant from its parent company Ardonagh Group, which gives money to community projects throughout the world, nominated by local staff.

Commercial director Gareth Rowett said: “We’ve been in business for 40 years this year and we’ve got lots of community activities planned as part of our celebrations.

“Our flagship initiative was to ask our own customers to help us select a local charity to be the beneficiary of our fundraising efforts during the year. They overwhelmingly asked us to support the children’s hospice and we were delighted to do that.

“Our parent company operates a charitable trust so I applied for a grant for the hospice and I’m thrilled that we got the money as it’s a big trust with people applying from all over the world.”

The money will be used to buy an adapted shower trolley for Little Harbour so that young people with restricted mobility who are staying at the hospice can wash in comfort, maintaining dignity and independence as much as their condition allows.

Sam Hurse, head of care at Little Harbour, said: “The trolley will enable the care teams to provide showers to children in a safe and dignified manner. It also acts as a changing table to allow us to safely transfer children from the changing table to the bath or to the hydrotherapy pool, which the children love to use to relax their muscles and have fun.

“It will be a piece of equipment that will be used daily to deliver care to our children and families and without it we wouldn’t be able to provide such a high standard of care. It truly is a vital piece of equipment for our teams.”

Bethany Rudge, area fundraiser for Little Harbour, said: “We are absolutely thrilled to have secured this vital funding for a new shower trolley at Little Harbour, and it simply wouldn’t have been possible without the incredible support of Rowett Insurance.

“This equipment will make a real difference to the children we support, and we’re so grateful to Rowett Insurance for making this happen.

“Their commitment to making a difference is truly inspiring - not only have they facilitated this grant, but they’ve also thrown themselves into fundraising as part of their charity of the year partnership with us with such enthusiasm.”

The hospice, which expects to be installing the trolley later this year, is dedicated to making the most of short and precious lives, providing the best possible hospice care for children living with life-limiting conditions and their families.