Zoe’s Place Baby Hospice has been chosen by St Johns Shopping Centre as its first charity partner for 2018.

A new community initiative will see the centre linking up with four different Liverpool-based charities across the year to give their fund-raising a valuable boost.

Those teaming up with St Johns will be able to promote their work in the centre over a 12-week period, as well as benefitting from collections at their own and the centre’s events.

Chris Newman, community fundraiser for Zoe’s Place, said the charity was excited to have the opportunity to reach supporters.

She said: “Zoe’s Place costs £1.6million a year to run so it is a huge challenge to meet those costs and we’re almost entirely funded through donations.

“We offer respite, palliative and end-of-life care for babies and young children across Liverpool and further afield and, at the moment, we have 70 families coming to us for respite care whose children have life-limiting or life-threatening conditions.

“We already have fantastic facilities, including soft play, a sensory room, and hydrotherapy pool, and we’re currently raising funds for a sensory garden so having this partnership with St Johns will give us a great boost in raising funds and awareness.”

St Johns centre manager Neil Ashcroft added: “At St Johns we want to play an active part in our community and work with local people to improve lives wherever possible so we’re keen to offer our support to charities in a variety of ways – through our time, space, connections and all of our social media channels.

“We’re partnering with four different charities across the year as part of our ‘St Johns is Community’ campaign, and we’re delighted to have Zoe’s Place as the first because of the amazing work it does in Liverpool.

“We genuinely care about the charity so our teams have been working together to make sure they get the most out of the opportunity.”

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