THE wives and lady members of Rye Lions have donated £250 to the Sara Lee Trust. After hearing of the good work carried out by the Sara Lee Trust from one of the Trust’s patients, they decided that their first year’s fund-raising should go to this local good cause.

The Sara Lee Trust is an independent local charity providing complementary therapies, counselling and creative therapies to people living through cancer and other life limiting illnesses, such as motor neuron disease, as well as providing support for families and carers.

The Trust was set up in memory of Sara Lee who died aged 32 from cancer. It was Sara’s vision, as a result of using complementary therapies during her two year battle with cancer, that a Trust be set up to provide therapies free of charge to people in Hastings, Rother and Rye living through cancer and other serious illnesses. After her death, Sara’s family and friends set up the Sara Lee Trust fifteen years ago.

The Trust provides therapies such as acupuncture, aromatherapy, reflexology and relaxation to patients in their treatment rooms at Rye, Winchelsea and District Memorial Hospital and in St Leonards.

The Trust also employs a Community Therapist who can visit in their own homes, those unable to attend the treatment rooms. In addition to providing support for patients’ carers, they aim to provide 2,500 treatments each year, free of charge, to those referred to them.

As with many smaller local charities, the Trust receives no statutory funding and is completely reliant on public support, donations and fundraising.

The Lions ladies intend to carry on fundraising with their own initiatives for other worthy causes through the year and intend meeting monthly to raise funds for charity. To find out more about the Sara Lee Trust, their website can be found at www.saraleetrust.org.