Charity shops raise £1.5m for St Peter's Hospice

Staff and volunteers from St Peter's Hospice shops network celebrated a record year after raising more than £1.5 million for the charity.

The chain of 48 charity shops broke their profit record for the financial year 2008-09 with a total of £1,510,000 that went directly towards patient care at Bristol's only adult Hospice.

First place went again to Henleaze which made a profit of £134,000.

Runners up were as follows: 2, Nailsea – £100,000; 3, Yatton- £98,000; 4, Keynsham – £72, 000; 5, Portishead – £68,000.

Sandie Foxall-Smith, chief executive of St Peter's Hospice presented awards to the most profitable shops in the network and said: "It was great to be able to present the awards to our staff and volunteers in recognition of all the hard work and commitment they have given to the St Peter's Hospice retail network in the past year.

"Despite the credit crunch we have had a fantastic year and sales have been up by 14 per cent. Last year alone we provided palliative care to 1,900 patients and also bereavement and grief support to more than 6,000 family members, including children.

"The cost of providing this specialist service is £5.3m a year and our chain of 48 charity shops contribute a valuable £1.5m per year.

"This equates to more than 20 per cent of the running costs of the Hospice – so the continued hard work of our staff and volunteers is of vital importance to us."