Last week Haven House celebrated the launch of a new cinema room in its Holistic Care Centre with a screening of kids’ favourite – The LEGO Movie.

Children, families and staff visited the hospice during half term to watch the film and enjoy the new state-of-the-art cinema equipment.

Mike Palfreman, Chief Executive of the Woodford Green hospice, explains why the screening room is such a welcome addition to the hospice; ‘Most of the children who use our services aren’t able to attend mainstream cinema, so it’s great that we can now show films at the hospice.’ 

He continues; ‘It’s not only our unwell children who miss out on these outings, but the siblings too, so we’re delighted that families can now come to the hospice for that cinema experience.’ 

The screening room has been kitted out by a generous ‘Gift in Kind’ donation from Together for Cinema*, which sees the AV Industry working with Together For Short Lives to bring the cinema experience to children’s hospices in the UK.

9-year-old Aisha Davies from Hainualt who attended the event with brother Kai and mum Maxine said; ‘I love this film and it really was awesome to be able to watch the movie with my mum and brother, as normally we can’t go to the cinema together.’

The cinema room (which will also be used for parent and staff training sessions) is part of the hospice’s new Holistic Care Centre, which will be offering a range of non-clinical services to local life-limited children and families. In other awesome news this week, the hospice successfully bid for a £15,000 grant from Thomas Cook Children’s Charity.  The funds have paid for refurbishment and re-decoration of all five bedrooms at the hospice and will provide TVs in every room. 

The hospice has also been awarded a £3,000 grant from Lloyds Bank Community Fund.  Customers from four local branches were urged to vote for their favourite local charity and Haven House received almost half the votes.

Speaking about the charitable grants, Mike Palfreman commented; ‘It’s wonderful to see big companies like Thomas Cook and Lloyds Bank doing their bit in the local community and even better to see Haven House benefiting from these charitable donations.’