This Christmas, H.R. Owen Specialist Cars is doing all that it can to bring the festive spirit to its local community. And that’s why, this year, it decided to shine a spotlight on a very special project in Cheltenham, delivering a boot-full of Christmas presents to Maggie’s, a cancer care charity.
Maggie’s cancer care centres have been providing support to individuals and families dealing with cancer in the UK since 1996, when the first Maggie’s centre opened in Edinburgh with a vision of delivering a new kind of care. Founder Maggie Keswick Jencks developed the idea from her own experience of a cancer diagnosis, hoping to create a calm and friendly environment for cancer patients to find comfort and mental wellbeing while remaining comfortably nearby to the medical treatment offered by hospitals.
The Cheltenham Maggie’s opened in 2010, as the charity’s second site in England. In 2019, the site welcomed 19,500 people through its doors, while it remained open and staffed during the Covid-19 pandemic, continuing to offer mindful care to the people and families who need it the most. Support groups bring families together to deal with the emotional impact of a cancer diagnosis, and this Christmas, it is the children in these support networks that H.R. Owen wants to pay tribute to.
The team from H.R. Owen Specialist Cars in Cheltenham picked a Bentley Bentayga from their selection of modern luxury and performance cars to take the place of Santa’s sleigh for a special delivery to Maggie’s. The capacious boot was loaded with presents to be handed out to some of the brave children as an acknowledgement of the important role they can play in these family support units. Some of the children in these support units are as young as four years old.
As well as its Cheltenham site, Maggie’s has grown into a network of care centres built up and down the UK. And along with mental health support, professional assistance for a range of issues faced by cancer patients and their families, from help dealing with the side-effects of treatment, to money worries, is offered free of appointment or referral.
Anna Mason, from Maggie’s Cheltenham, said: “We’re incredibly grateful for the community support we receive in Cheltenham from local businesses exactly like H.R. Owen Specialist Cars. We’re a growing charity but we continually need these acts of kindness to ensure we can deliver the kind of experience that we want for our visitors. This donation will make such a difference to us during the Christmas period, and for it to arrive in such style provided a very special moment for our visitors and team.”
Click here to find out more about Maggie’s cancer care centres, and here to discover more about H.R. Owen Specialist Cars Cheltenham.