Fifty volunteers from Mizuho have helped transform Haven House Children’s Hospice’s gardens in Hospice Care Week.

Staff from the City-based corporate and investment bank spent a day at Haven House on Friday 7 October preparing its gardens and grounds for winter and the charity’s Pumpkin Plod on Sunday 23 October.

The volunteers cleared away leaves, replaced box hedging in Haven House’s playground with lavender and resurfaced pathways.

The gardening work was among a series of volunteering activities undertaken by Mizuho in Hospice Care Week and as part of a two-year charity partnership with Haven House.

On Friday, Mizuho staff and Chief Executive Michiel de Jong received a tour of Haven House and its Holistic Care Centre.

Mizuho staff created colourful origami peace cranes to decorate various rooms around the hospice to mark their volunteering week.

Earlier in the week, Mizuho staff spent a day volunteering in Haven House’s charity shop in Leytonstone with colleagues competing in a ‘store wars’ challenge to raise as much funds as possible by selling stock and raffle tickets.

Artwork produced by the brothers and sisters of children who use Haven House also went on display at Mizuho House, the organisations new building on the Old Bailey. The activities will finish on Thursday 13 October with a small group of volunteers hosting a coffee morning for parents who use Haven House.

Mike Palfreman, Chief Executive of Haven House, said: “We are incredibly grateful to Mizuho for all of their hard effort in transforming our grounds and getting involved with so many different areas of our work in Hospice Care Week.

“The origami peace cranes are a beautiful sight to see in our hospice and we are delighted that Mizuho will be hosting a coffee morning for parents on Thursday.

“Mizuho’s partnership is already making a difference to our families and we look forward to continuing to work with Mizuho in 2017.      

Haven House relies on the generosity of business partners to raise funds for life-limited children and their families. If you would like to support our work please visit our corporate giving page.