Leading short break provider Center Parcs has extended its charity partnership with Together for Short Lives, the UK’s leading children’s palliative care charity, for four more years.  

The partnership, which began in 2016, has so far raised over £1.7m for the 99,000 children living with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions and their families in the UK. The funds raised have given vital support to the UK’s 54 children’s hospices in the UK, including Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice.

As well as match-funding donations made by guests when making bookings, Center Parcs colleagues have been taking on their own fundraising challenges across its five villages in England - Whinfell Forest in Cumbria, Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, Longleat Forest in Wiltshire, Elveden Forest in Suffolk, and Woburn Forest in Bedfordshire, as well as at their Head Office in Nottinghamshire. Each village is partnered with their local children’s hospice for fundraising and volunteering, ensuring colleagues can make a difference in their own communities. From running the London Marathon to holding duck races, hosting auctions to ‘all in a day’ fundraisers, colleagues have been doing all they can to raise vital funds for families caring for a seriously ill child. 

Colleagues have also been volunteering at their local children’s hospice and helping to make a difference. This has included renovating sensory gardens and using their specialist skills to help fix and maintain hydrotherapy pools, as well as treating parents to their award-winning spa treatments at the hospice. 

Center Parcs has also helped bereaved families and those caring for a seriously ill child have the chance to get away and make memories together. Working with Together for Short Lives’ Family Support Hub, which offers practical, emotional, and financial support to families, Center Parcs has gifted over 100 breaks at its villages to families across the UK.  

Hannah Goulding, Regional Fundraiser at Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice said: "As a charity we need to raise over £5m each year to be there for local children and families who often have nowhere else to turn, so the support of businesses like Center Parcs are incredibly important to us.

"We’re overjoyed that Center Parcs is extending its partnership with Together for Short Lives and I’m looking forward to working with their Sherwood Forest village over the coming year and beyond.”

Chris Ruston, Village Director at Center Parcs Sherwood Forest, said: "We’re thrilled to be extending our partnership with Together for Short Lives. Our colleagues have such a huge enthusiasm for fundraising for Together for Short Lives and Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice, and we particularly value the opportunity to support families in the community surrounding our village. I’m so proud of this partnership and look forward to continuing to work together to help support families going through unimaginably difficult times."